INTERACTING
The primary idea of the interactive piece would be that it has an uncertain narrative , and it would offer a player the ability to move through an urban space and experience something fresh and new . The players would search for different pieces of text in a computer generated city-like structure , and by finding and collecting them , they would develop a unique narrative . Somewhat similarly to the uncertainty principle in physics , by choosing or viewing certain pieces the players would cause other pieces to change , disappear or be born . The texts are written in a short , sometimes lyrical , diary format , and they all circle around situations where uncertainty plays a major role , like being lost in a city , or having a call from a private number , playing cards , finding a forgotten box at home , watching random cctv / webcam video streams , meeting a friend on a bus , tripping , blind-dating , talking to strangers through online game avatars , searching for lost items , communicating with a foreigner without a mutual language , thinking about time , or buying an avocado .
Two sample pieces below :
They said it was half but when I checked it , it seemed far beyond .
I was then looked at it in detail , and found the same feeling of halfness
in even smaller sections of it . I tried to call one of them but the line was busy .
Phone rings , the number is hidden . Is she trying to disguise herself ? Why would we start a conversation that way ?
First I need to buy some sunglasses but .. then I decide to answer the call . then I say “ No , thank you !” then I think “ But what ?”
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I started working on the city generation first . I wrote an algorithm that would create cubed buildings , floor by floor , from the ground up , with a small random chance for the outer cubes to disappear as the building reaches its maximum height . This gave such formations :
The next semi-random algorithm draws L-shaped road-lines onto a low resolution 2D map , like these :
After giving the roadmap generator a more natural base ( anything thats not a perfect square ) a more believable city can be grown from the white parts of the maps :