Tag: games

Categories
Highlights Projects

Dreaming Gargoyle

A gargoyle sculpture with a phone on its mouth,

Sing a lullaby to sooth the gargoyle to sleep. An alternative controller game based on bring-your-own-device and a concrete sculpture. The game was created during a 5 month creative residency at the Whaaat?! Lab in the University of Colorado – Boulder (Boulder, CO, USA). It is a collaboration with Danny Rankin.

In Dreaming Gargoyle, players encounter a small concrete gargoyle sculpture in a dark room. They use their phones to open the game’s website and place the device in the gargoyle’s mouth. The phone screen is projected through the sculpture’s eye. Players then learn that the gargoyle is having insomnia and are tasked with signing a lullaby to calm the gargoyle and help it sleep. The singing is detected by the phone’s microphone and pitch is mapped to different notes that make the game’s narrative progress, leading players into learning more about the gargoyle’s troubled dreams. It is an experiment in creating games using durable materials and unpowered extensions, creating new possibilities for urban sites and public play.

Exhibitions and showcases

2023 – ATLAS Expo at ATLAS Institute of the University of Colorado – Boulder. – Boulder, CO, USA.

Categories
Highlights Projects

DE VOLTA

DE VOLTA is an alternative controller game about finding your way home while avoiding paths previously taken. Players use a variety of input systems to fly their starship around a planetary system, manage scarce resources, and dodge ghosts of past runs. How many times can you find your way home?

DE VOLTA being played at alt.ctrl.GDC 2022.

The game was created for the Tinycade system, using the Godot game engine, in early 2022. You can play DE VOLTA on devolta.tinycade.io. It has been exhibited as part of the Tinycade booth at alt.ctrl.GDC 2022.

Made by

Enric Llagostera: game design, controller design, programming and visuals

Peter Gyory: controller design and programming

Perry Owens: controller design and fabrication

Enric Granzotto Llagostera’s work on this project is partially funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC), as part of the Doctoral Research Scholarship 2020-B2Z-276952.

Exhibitions and showcases

2022 – alt.ctrl.GDC 2022, as part of the Tinycade booth – San Francisco, CA, USA.

Categories
Work

Student organizer at DesignJam: Accessible Gamepad Jam

I was part of the student team organizing the accessible gamepad jam, in a participatory activity part of the accessXchange forum on advancing inclusive, accessible approaches to design and learning.

My main focus was on the use of the Micro:bit board as starting point for prototyping and experimentation on collectively making accessible controllers for existing games. I also participated in designing the jam process and collaborating with peers from EducationMakers and Milieux.

More information is available on the event website.

Categories
Highlights Projects Research

Cook Your Way

In Cook Your Way, visa applicants (i.e. the players) are tasked with cooking a typical dish of their country of origin using a cooking station. Immigration authorities then evaluate applicants according to their efficiency and potential to contribute to the new country’s society. Cooking becomes a standardized test, one step within a longer application process. This game is a research-creation project created during my doctoral research on alternative controller games at Concordia University. You can visit the project’s website here.

Awards

2020 – Winner of the Explorer award at the AMAZE. Berlin festival 2020.

Exhibitions and showcases

2023 – Art et/ou jeu : symbiose ou dissonance ? at Centre Culturel Canadien as part of ISEA 2023 – Paris, France.

2023 – JEU_ART_GAME exhibition at Centre BANG – Chicoutimi, Québec, Canada.

2023 – JEU_ART_GAME exhibition at Elektra – Montréal, Québec, Canada.

2022 – Pelipoikilo – Kouvola, Finland.

2022 – PLAYTIME 20.22 exhibition at Culturcentruum Bruges – Bruges, Belgium.

2022 – JEU_ART_GAME exhibition at Sporobole – Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada.

2020 – Explorer Award at A MAZE festival – Berlin, Germany.

2019 – alt.ctrl.GDC 2019 at Game Developers Conference 2019** – San Francisco, CA, USA.

2019 – Demo at Designing Interactive Systems conference – San Diego, USA.

2019 – Artcade – Montréal, Québec, Canada

Press

2019-08-09 – Rock Paper Shotgun – In Cook Your Way you must cook a meal with a strange controller to get through immigration

2019-02-26 – Game Developer – Alt.Ctrl.GDC Showcase: Cook Your Way

Credits

Cook Your Way was created by Enric Granzotto Llagostera.

Videos, photography and documentation graphics by Vjosana Shkurti.

Music from https://filmmusic.io: “Modern Jazz Samba” by Kevin MacLeod. Licence: CC BY. Intro music by John Bartmann.

French translation and localization by Jess Rowan Marcotte.

I would like to thank a few folks for their ongoing support and various contributions to this project: Carolina Chmielewski Tanaka, Rilla Khaled, Rebecca Goodine, Jess Rowan Marcotte, Dietrich Squinkifer.

Cook Your Way  was created with the support of a Hexagram Student Grant and the Reflective Game Design research group.

This project was partially funded with the support of the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC), as part of the Doctoral Research Scholarship 2020-B2Z-276952.

Citation

Granzotto Llagostera, Enric. 2019. Cook Your Way. Videogame with alternative controller. https://enric.llagostera.com.br/cookyourway.

Related publications

Granzotto Llagostera, E. and Khaled, R. 2023. On Cooking a Sour Game. Journal for Computer Games Criticism, Volume 5, Bonus Issue: Surviving Whiteness in Games. https://gamescriticism.org/articles/llagosterakhaled-5-a.

Granzotto Llagostera, Enric. 2019a. “Cook Your Way: Political Game Design with Alternative Controllers.” In Companion Publication of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019 Companion, 25–28. DIS ’19 Companion. New York, NY, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3301019.3325148.

Granzotto Llagostera, Enric. 2018. “The Design Process of Cook Your Way.” Conference panel presented at the 2018 Canadian Game Studies Association (CGSA/ACÉV) Annual Conference, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan.

Categories
Highlights Projects

gambi_abo

gambi_abo is a research-creation project featuring a series of do-it-yourself (DIY) cardboard-based game controllers. Each controller has approachable and accessible building instructions for how to create controllers using easy to find interface devices. With gambi_abo, the public can make controllers for the games you choose, not the ones a certain company decides are the best for its platforms. You can learn more about this project in its website: https://enricllagostera.github.io/gambi_abo/about/.

Press

2018-04-27 – Vice Brasil – Três controles de videogame pra você construir com papelão

2018-04-20 – Game Developer – Create your own cardboard controllers with free ‘gambi_abo’ blueprints

Citation

Granzotto Llagostera, Enric. 2018. gambi_abo. Videogame controllers. https://enricllagostera.github.io/gambi_abo/.

Related publications

Granzotto Llagostera, Enric. 2020. “Despedaçando plataformas: ferramentas alternativas de criação de jogos e práticas compartilhadas.” In Proceedings of SBGames 2020, 8. Recife, Brazil: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação. https://www.sbgames.org/proceedings2020/WorkshopJogosDiversos/209562.pdf.

Granzotto Llagostera, Enric. 2019b. “Critical Controllers: How Alternative Game Controllers Foster Reflective Game Design.” In Companion
Publication of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019 Companion, 85–88. San Diego, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3301019.3324872.

Categories
Highlights Projects

Roots

Roots is a collaboration between Rebecca Goodine and Enric Llagostera, started in January 2018. It is a research-creation game design project that actively involves intergenerational players in an experience that cultivates each other’s capabilities for care within a larger community.

Gameplay is both haptic and visual in nature, with players working together to grow an onscreen digital garden through an alternative controller resembling an underground roots system.

In the current Roots “well” design, players put their hands inside a soft padded well through holes in its sides. The game’s digital garden inside the top of the well can be grown and watered by connecting roots within the well’s interior to a circuit based ground cushion. Each root has a different feel, texture and weight, with softness and tactility acting as invitations into new and unfamiliar learning spaces.

Exhibitions and showcases

2018 – Flop Rooftop Artcade – Montréal,
Québec, Canada.

2018 – Different Games 2018 conference –
Worcester, USA.

2018 – Milieux Expo – Montréal, Québec,
Canada.

Citation

Goodine, Rebecca, and Enric Granzotto Llagostera. 2018. Roots. Game installation. https://tag.hexagram.ca/games/roots/.

Categories
Projects

Coralina

This is a small digital toy about growing a coral garden. I made it for Ludum Dare 34 game jam in under 4 hours, both programming, design and art. You can play it here.

Categories
Projects

Balance the Beam

This alternative controller game was made for the Alt Ctrl Game Jam in 2015. I designed and programmed the game, using an Android controller attached to a broomstick as its controller, connected to a PC running the game logic. Players have to use the broomstick to keep an interstellar portal open and save the spaceships. My goal was to explore existing devices, subverting everyday objects and use them to invite players. You can download it here and there is also a preview video here.

Categories
Projects

Tokaido

A game about walking the legendary Tōkaidō road, enjoying the scenery and trying to heal other characters’ emotional issues. Each one has different needs you can talk and try to satisfy. I programmed and designed the game, together with André Asai, Eduardo Emmerich and Gabriel Naro, for the SPJam 2015 game jam.

Categories
Projects

A Duel in Limbo

This local multiplayer game had two players playing asymmetrically: one controlling physical tokens and the other a virtual character. They had to compete and take turns creating a range of virtual obstacles via the physical tokens and escaping that fractured landscape. This game prototype was made for my MSc experimental game design class, and it used computer vision libraries to enable the interaction with the tokens. I made the programming, design and art.

Categories
Projects

The Wise Head Says

This game is a local multiplayer game in which players compete to reach the top. However, their only way to go up is by using jetpacks fired by their singing. I made this game as an experiment about shared microphone input and competitive play during my MSc game design class.