Circle Jerk Documentation from kevings on Vimeo.
So as with my animation final I was not so great at documenting my ICM final, Circle Jerk. This will not be the final documentation as I’m hoping to take more footage during the Winter Show this weekend. My idea started as a game focused on depression with a mechanic revolving a character constrained to a center circle. This character would be pushing and fighting objects trying to enter the middle, and originally I wanted to make the character succumb and lose, only to have other people join to help. I wanted to say something about depression being a difficult thing to fight alone and doing so through using your loved ones is great. I was also debating making it more personal and autobiographical.
Once I had the main character stay in the circle, however, I had a hard time figuring out where to go next. Upon a suggestion I added a touch component and then added multiple touches so people could play together, reinforcing the idea of fighting something with others. The mechanic didn’t quite match the feel I was going for, and I tried playing with different titles, instructions, and explanations, but it always felt like it was too disjointed. At one point it was called Chemical Imbalance and talked about depression but it did not work. It was too fun, to be honest. Not that fighting depression can’t be fun, but given the time I had and what I had accomplished, it wasn’t the project I had on my hands.
And so I decided to embrace the fun group arcade game that I made. I added a timer and saved the high score, and I gave it a silly title and added humor to complete the experience. I found sounds and music on Freesound and edited them to suit the game. Though it was not the game I originally planned, I am still happy with how it came out. I am a bit disappointed that the big screens only take 6 touch points (and therefore can only recognize 6 “players”) and I’d really like to optimize it for a larger screen with more inputs in the future.