Category: capstone2021

 
“What has been eaten” is an interactive video project in comics style, which is made to address the problem of social media design ethics.

In our daily life, we all scroll our phones to follow trends, to explore the world from the other side of the world, to get connected with people who are out of our networking area.

With high exposure to diverse content, posts, have you ever thought about why social media Apps know you so well? Why you get continuously interested in generated content?

“What has been eaten” will lead you to explore what has happened behind Apps’ design and how these designs slightly change our behavior and thoughts.

 
What is good writing in video games and how can one capitalize and learn from it?

Through the first semester of Capstone, where the best storytelling games were looked at in depth and analyzed, it became obvious that “good” writing in video games:
1. Is consistent
2. Tells a story
3. Has correct grammar and spelling
4. Doesn’t use unnecessary words
By further focusing on point 2 (telling a story) it is possible for video game developers to learn more about what their players enjoy and gravitate towards. This dips into the important area of player analytics. Every business enjoys knowing what sells their product and what doesn’t, in the same way, by being able to see which choices in a text-based video game are picked more, one can see what their audience resonates with more.

To make such a text-based video game through this Capstone, Twine was utilized, and a story “good” enough to engage the audience was created: Wightwhisper, a story of a pair of siblings trying to restore their family to power after being exiled for using black magic. Once this story was written up and inputted into Twine, it was tested by 12 individuals (6 guys and 6 girls) for story research purposes. Out of the 12 players, 9 picked the male sibling as their main character, which went against the assumption that women would want to play the female character and vice versa for the men.

Once Google Analytics were implemented, data began accumulating over player’s different choices. Data that allowed for assumptions. Out of the three paths for each character: power, family and love, no matter which main character the players selected, most of them preferred family over love and power. This is important for the overall direction of the video game industry because it shows a clear pattern: no matter what gender of character people prefer playing, above all, family is a theme that resonates with players.

As text-based games however, are very niche, not every person has the ability to enjoy reading and making decisions. This specific genre (text based games) was the most popular in the 1980s, therefore in order to enhance the enjoyment and comfort of people who aren’t the target niche, Wighwhisper, as a whole project, had to be taken to another level. Through the use of an old screen, mouse, keyboard, chair, desk and several posters from the 80s, Wighwhisper became an experience in the virtual world as well as in the physical world. People took pictures sitting in the chair and enjoying the aesthetic of the project comfortably.

Overall, Wightwhisper was a triumph of passion for video games in several aspects: writing, game development, coding, player analytics and industry history. It shows potential for further exploration of game audiences and writing in the long run.

 
Professional networking has always been an activity conducive to physical environments — coffee chats, conferences, galas, etc. With a disruption like COVID-19, meeting people in these types of physical environments are no longer feasible. In most other social circumstances, we seek refuge within digital social media platforms. Linkedin is the industry leader in terms of professional social networks, but considering the circumstances, it has one major flaw. Linkedin is very focused on recommending people based on pre-existing connections and maintaining professional connections created elsewhere. LinkedIn is not a good resource for searching for new connections, as does not necessarily push the user to connect with strangers. In fact, it does the opposite. It encourages users to establish connections with people that have a common trait, whether that be company, industry, education, or mutual connections. There isn’t much of an incentive to create meaningful conversations between strangers. Networking to create diverse startups is a daunting task, particularly for young entrepreneurs with minimal experience starting their businesses. With current professional social networks like Linkedin, the space to create intimate conversations with like-minded strangers is severely limited. However, one type of social networking platform that does an excellent job of inciting conversations is dating applications. This is due to the way the application’s design creates intention. In a non-technical sense, the process of networking with professionals is quite similar to dating in pursuit of a romantic partner. The design of the application plays a major role in the intent and interpretation of how to utilize its features. The methodology utilized in dating applications limits the amount of information presented to the user to create a more intimate, individualized experience when matching with other users. Users are typically presented with a main single image with some brief information about the potential matchee. CoFind is a mobile application that aims to fill the space in the market for an online professional networking solution by adapting the user experience of dating apps to a networking context.

 
As technological advancements provide the general public with unprecedented access to financial devices, people’s ability to create multiple streams of income and acquire wealth has increased. Such financial innovations like internet banking, mobile investing services, and cryptocurrencies hitting the mainstream mean people have numerous options to acquire wealth, but also many more pitfalls for those who don’t have the required foundational knowledge to utilize these tools to their full potential. From research, the financial literacy resources available to the general public, especially to the youth, are not only limited, but also lack the updated content to cover the many different forms of financial tools available to us today.

PiggyFund, an app for financial literacy with a mobile payment function aims to tackle these two problems by providing the youth with a resource that they can turn to and directly apply their knowledge in real life situations. Using design thinking and UX design as frameworks, PiggyFund is especially designed for high school students with a semi-professional aesthetic for the payment functions and an enjoyable playful aesthetic for the financial literacy classes through gamified, bite-sized lessons. The app also provides incentives for the youth to learn the lessons on their own by providing rewards in the form of achievements and an in-game currency that can be redeemed for coupons and discounts for their favorite services and products. The app also provides a social function called the “Social Hub” where students can foster a community of financially-conscious individuals.

The main aspect that required the most research was the creation of the lessons to be simple, effective, relevant, yet engaging. The key was to find a way to teach these complex concepts in a simple and understandable manner. Through multiple trials with high school students, the current form of learning through interactive, multiple-ending, and miniature games came to fruition. The simplicity and engagement of the UX and its content allows for current students to learn essential financial concepts on-the-go. Though the slightly more adult aesthetic of the payment function required a few iterations of its own, the current form is meant to prepare young users to the multitude of professional apps in the real world.

The long term vision of this app is to include the entire K-12 system and provide youth an app that “grows” with them, with subjects of lessons and functionality increasing in complexity with every year until they are fully ready for the real world by the time they finish their education. Currently, the app aims solely at the high school demographic, providing users a glimpse of the full range of functions that will be available to the older students. By ensuring that the youth become financially independent users by the time they reach adulthood, we can be sure that the future generations of families of any race and background an equal opportunity to learn and develop their financial foundation for generations to come.

 
Behind the Shark Fin Soup is an augmented projection based installation. This whole installation together with the environmental setting designed to be an augmented dinner experience where people can sit, learn and feel the dark truth behind the shark finning industry.The main purpose for this project is to raise people’s awareness of the shark finning industry. Its initial inspiration was driven by my previous volunteer experience in Sri Lanka. This project is aiming to bring a straightforward view of this serious matter to the public.

The project is developed based on the idea of empathy, in order to ignite the public actions towards such a social issue. As for the visual content, the projection tells a story generally in flashback. Starting with a bowl of shark fin soup, it traces back to the cooking and fishing process. Afterwards, the vision would expand to the general ocean environment and suddenly draw the attention back to the bowl right in front of the audience. With all these contrasts, it indicates what great effect that an individual could have on such a serious matter: exactly as the title goes, what is behind your bowl of soup? In terms of the visual expressions, the language of trauma has been used to make the experience intensive and memorable. After the hectic input, the audience are expected to get a meditative thought to grow their empathy.

As for the sound design, it could be divided into two parts. One is the representation for the shark finning process, which is made up of human voices and the machine-like, repetitive noises. These sounds have been extracted from shark finning documentaries. The other one is voices from marine animals, such as the whales’ voice, which represents the natural environment and marine lives. All sounds are intentionally designed to be sound like under the sea, in this way, to make the environment more immersive.

The objects displayed beside the projection are models of product related to shark fins. This corner imitates the real Chinese restaurant setting.