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Research Questions In what ways does humour theory influence the development process of a browser-based interactive experience when working with JavaScript frameworks? How do these interactive experiences critically engage with interactive systems and our relationship with technology? Keywords Humour Theory, JavaScript Frameworks, Interaction Design, User Experience, Creative Coding, Research Through Design, Reflexive Practice

Descant is a Unity 2022.3.x or later dialogue system plugin. The Unity Asset Store is chock full of many such types of plugins, ranging from feature-rich, to ultra-minimalist, to downright bad. Descant aims to hit the sweet spot between quality UI, powerful features, and easy-to-lean functionality, while also addressing many of the game-specific consequences of the standard dialogue manager setup. Besides acting as a standard tool for creating, saving, and actualizing non-linear game dialogue, it also pushes the envelope by adding optional dialogue-enhancing node components that introduce features to break away from the overused and underwhelming trends seen in many interactive fiction games. These enhancements act similar to Unity’s standard GameObject Component system, and can be applied at-will to nodes. This modular approach is so-far not explored in the world of Unity dialogue systems. The project will be free (and collaborative open-source) forever. Feel free to send me a message or submit a pull request if you want to make any changes.

Turn your distraction device into a mindful device. Lay it down on the table and run through a series of exercises to restore life to your digits.

Eikon is a playful study in how the physical interfaces of games can be objects of and vehicles for contemplation. Rest your hands on the box. Explore the contours of the interface and apply varying degrees of pressure as an ever-shifting field of minimalist visuals unfolds alongside a layered ambient soundscape. The experience recalls the ritualistic presence of ceremonial objects - prayer candles, tea ceremonies, stained glass, mandalas, idols - objects that center attention and open a space for reflecting on something beyond the immediate world.

Instauratio Exiguus is an alt-ctrl puzzle that explores repetition and contemplative practice. It is a minimal, contemplative, alt.ctrl game where players use a hand-made, synth-like controller to find the correct locations for on-screen pixels. Subtle visual and sonic cues help to guide the player. As these pixels are moved to their correct locations, they create unique constellations. The creation of these constellations resolves obfuscated abstract content on the screen, revealing texts from Søren Kierkegaard's essay Repetition. Once the image is fully uncovered, the player is given the opportunity to read the text before the whole image shrinks back down to the single white dot, offering them the opportunity to undergo the activity again. Through this repetitive act of finding, listening, observing, and reflecting, the player is invited into a more contemplative form of play, a play that is guided by them, where there is no discrete ending or win-state.

The robots are here! No more work! It’s great! Is it great?! Wait! You feel apathetic and unproductive! You miss clicking buttons! You miss waiting for progress bars! You miss checkboxes! You miss work! But it’s going to be okay! Use this handy application and it is as if you were doing work! It is as if you were doing work is a work of speculative play, presenting a vision of a possible/near-future in the form of an application that helps people pretend they’re doing standard-issue computer work. Jump in an answer emails, write documents, click check boxes, and so much more!

Physical intimacy is a thing of the past! Finally! But wait! Why do you feel so alone?! You want to touch someone?! Make them feel good?! But you don’t really want to actually have to touch someone?! You don’t really want to deal with another human?! Well you’re in luck! With this new application it is as if you were making love! It is as if you were making love is the sequel to It is as if you were doing work. It is an application from a near future in which humans have lost the interest and will for physical sex with other humans. The application provides you with the experience of erotically pleasuring someone without the involvement of another human being, replacing that role with a user-interface.

Look at you! On your phone! But you've got a secret! And you won't tell! You're not on your phone! It is only as if you were on your phone! You're just pretending to be on your phone! On your phone! It is as if you were on your phone is an almost speculative game about an incredibly near future in which we're all simultaneously under significant pressure to be on our phones all the time, but also to not be on our phones all the time. Our fingers want to touch the screen, our eyes want to watch the surface, our brains want to be occupied efficiently and always. But it's also exhausting liking photos, swiping profiles, watching short-form video, and everything else we're always doing. It is as if you were on your phone presents an alternative: pretend to be on your phone so that you pass as human, but actually do essentially nothing instead. Follow the prompts and be free. It is as if you were on your phone was created using p5 along with Hammer.js for touch gestures.

It is as if you were playing a text adventure is an attempt to tell a story through the user-interface of a classic parser-based text adventure. It takes Michael Berto's novella Cornerstone as its jumping off point.

You’ve always wanted to be a chess master! But you aren’t one! Are you! Now you can at least look like one! Pretend you’re playing chess! Make moves! Act like you feel things! Smirk! Frown! Weep! Chess! It is as if you were playing chess was written in JavaScript/HTML5 using the Phaser game framework. It's a game that allows you to pretend to be playing chess. You know, impress your friends and strangers on the metro...

Exploration on creating a game-like experience using traditional synthesizer controls as inputs Initially, users are presented with a custom-built boutique synthesizer. By turning the dials, the various sonic parameters can be adjusted, creating an ever-evolving sonic landscape. The large synthesizer screen displays simple, cryptic, but generally traditional visuals mapped to each of these physical dials But underneath this all is something hidden. Below the surface is a doorway to an unknown and secret history. Who has built this strange device, and what are they trying to tell us? At first the visualized parameters make sense, but over time the images on the screen distort, fragment, and morph into something else entirely, giving glimpses of images, text, and sounds that tell an entirely different story. Listen.

The boulder is practically square! The apple is bare recognisable! Yet you push! Yet you reach! Yet you strain! Yet you weep! Punishment knows no minimum resolution! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Bitsy Demake is yet another new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series, each focusing on a retelling of five (kind of) mythological punishments. In Bitsy Demake the game is retold in the form of a Bitsy game using Adam Ledoux's wonderful game-creation tool Bitsy.

Chess! It already feels like a punishment to so many people! But now even more so! What if Zeus threw chess sets instead of lightning bolts?! What if Archimedes was a vengeful god?! What if you just kept getting chessed for eternity?! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Chess Edition is yet another new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series, focusing on a retelling of five (kind of) mythological punishments. In Chess Edition each punishment is expressed in the language of chess!

Fly like an eagle! Climb every mountain! Reach for the stars! I mean apple! Empty your opponent's bathtub just before they get in! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Competition Edition is a new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series, focusing on a retelling of five (kind of) mythological punishments. In the Competition Edition the dream of a two-player experience of eternal punishment is finally at hand. Face off against your friends in the classic battle between punisher and punished. The game was written in JavaScript using the excellent Phaser game framework.

Watch the computer struggle against the chains it put itself in! Watch the computer try to drink the water it moves out of reach! Watch the computer push a rock up a hill and knock it down again! In a joyful infinite loop! One must imagine CPU Sisyphus happy! CPU Edition is a version of my "classic" game Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment altered to be played entirely by a CPU player instead of a human. So, you just kind of watch. It was good enough for Venice!

It's pushing! It's running! It's reaching! It's suffering! It's five ancient greek punishments for the effort of one! It's everything! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Five-in-One is yet another new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series, focusing on a retelling of five (kind of) mythological punishments. In Five in One you live the excitement of all five punishments at the same time.

Torment characters from Greek mythology! Forever! Push Sisyphus back down the hill! Peck out Prometheus’s liver! Withhold the apple from Tantalus! Albert Camus said we must imagine Sisyphus happy! So the boulder must be even happier! Right?! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Inversion Edition is a new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series, focusing on a retelling of five (kind of) mythological punishments. In the Inversion Edition the role of the player is switched from the tormented to the tormentor, but is it really any better? Is Sisyphus happy? Is the boulder?

It’s Greek punishment! Again! Push a rock up a hill! Again! Try to drink the water! Again! Struggle against your chains! Again! It’s all the same! But everything is different! Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Limited Edition! was written in JavaScript/HTML5 using the Phaser game framework. Sounds were taken directly from the original Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment.

Type! Type the boulder up the hill! Type the eagle away from your liver! Type, damn you! It’s Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing in the depths of Hades! Feel the burn of your repetitive strain injuries! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Teaches Typing is yet another new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series, focusing on a retelling of five (kind of) mythological punishments. In Teaches Typing you learn to type in this helpfully Sisyphean environment. It's like Mavis Beacon, but in Hades.

Hypertext! Hyperpunishment! Click links while your heart sinks! Read texts and repent your defects! Enjoy the Twine! Your soul's on the line! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: The Twine is yet another new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series, each focusing on a retelling of five (kind of) mythological punishments. In The Twine the game is retold in the form of a Twine (hypertext) story.

Sliders! Radio buttons! Dialog boxes! Menus! Progress bars! These are the instruments of our eternal contemporary torment! The ancient Greek gods would have approved! We are all Sisyphus now! Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: UI Edition is a new edition in the Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment series. In the UI Edition the myths are retold via classical user-interface experiences, from radio buttons to setup wizards to sliders.

You can do it Sssisssyphusss! Be the boulder! Keep on rollin’! Don’t ssstop! Never give up! No retreat! No sssurrender! No end in sssight! Just deliciousss Greek torment asss far asss the eye can sssee and asss fassst asss the fingersss can type or ssswipe! Let's Snake: Ancient Greek Punishment is an adaptation of my 2011 game Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment into the videogame language of Snake. Let's Snake: Ancient Greek Punishment was created using Phaser 3 along with Hammer.js for touch gestures (swipes).

An exploration in using PD and granular synthesis to make puzzly gameplay experiences.

Academic articles in their digital form are skeuomorphic: a linear translation from paper to screen. This linear translation makes engagement with digital text awkward and also creates a boundary between the form of the article and the form of the digital reader. Based on the assumption that the existing forms and tools for academic reading and publication are saturated, this research re-imagines and speculates on a digital-first form of the academic article that breaks the constraints imposed by PDFs. This project calls for a paradigm shift: from Article as Files to Article as Software. It re-imagines the form of the digital academic article as a digital-first artifact, and explores the design space of the digital-first academic article (DFA). Instead of setting it up for printing and archival, the goal is to establish a unique identity of the digital research article that affords enhanced reading and learning from academic text.

Purrrfect Pizza is a digital roll and write where you try to make perfect pizzas to please your picky patrons. It is an exploration in using procedural audio in a compelling way to communicate nuanced game-state to the player (such as subtle scoring changes via item placement)

RollBots is a dice-rolling, set collection game where players work on a maintenance floor repairing robots as they come by on a conveyer belt. Roll dice to see what resources are available to fix the robots and fulfill your quota to become employee of the week!

An exploration in collaborative puzzle-solving play with experimental alt-controllers.

Twenty ways to think about a snake! Is it an alarmist?! A nudist?! A conformist?! Crossing tasks off its checklist!? Or just doing the twist!? You get the gist! SNAKISTS is a direct sequel to SNAKISMS. I thought it would be pretty fun to take on the variations challenge with Snake one more time. The world of ists is a weirder and less philosophical world than the isms, and so are the games. Heist, typist, ... onanist. You know you want to. SNAKISTS was created using Phaser 3.

Soundgarden is a first-person exploration game where sound takes center stage. Explore three distinct areas, each dedicated to unique sound-based interactions. On the first island, you can discover how sound emerges from nature. As you uncover the island’s secrets, you gain the ability to change the environment. On the second island, you will need to pay close attention to what you hear. Here, you will listen - and learn to develop a deep awareness of sound. The lagoon is your playground. Interact with mysterious sonic objects and change what you can hear. Experience the intricate ways in which sound, music, and nature are intertwined. You are invited to Soundgarden - a space to explore, play, and listen...

It's happening! Again! The Artist Is Present! You are present! The artist is you! Put on your red dress and sit in the famous chair! Lock eyes with your audience! Be there now! The Artist Is Present 2 is the non-awaited sequel to one of my earliest games, The Artist Is Present. The original game put the player in the shoes of a visitor to the Museum of Modern Art, attending the performance The Artist Is Present by Marina Abramovic. There they could wait in a very long queue to have the privilege of sitting opposite the artist, just like the real thing. In the sequel, the roles are reversed and the player is asked to take on the part of Marina Abramovic herself, giving the performance by making silent eye contact with each audience member who comes to sit with them.

It is the distant future. Humanity has wiped itself out, but every single entity on Earth has become sentient. You run the info booth at the only Mall on Spaceship ATMOS, the ark that has left earth carrying one of every single being as they search out another place to call home. Using your speech translator, you will tune into the unique language of every customer, helping them find the information they are looking for. Additionally, your control center contains numerous tools for you to help, including a mall map, directory, camera system, control over the piped-in music, and more. See more at Mouse & the Billionaire When beginning to think about a voice-controlled game experience, we wanted to focus on communication. The technological lapses in speech-recognition create an interesting opportunity to explore the inherent gaps in spoken communication. We exemplify this by having the player communicating specifically “through” a machine responsible for translating a variety of “languages” that innanimate objects might have. Additionally, while many voice-controlled games place the player in a role of commanding authority, we instead wanted to position the player as a helper, trying their best to communicate with these NPCs and help them gain the information they need. Lastly, we build out the entire game as an embodied experience, physically placing them in front of a large teller-style “window” into the world of the mall, along with a stylized microphone and neo-futurist control center. All of these decisions help to push empathy to the forefront of the experience as the player learns the various stories that unfold through the requests of the mall’s patrons.

Toggle is a game about the simplest form of interaction: selecting and activating something. It's a game about rules and interactions, or a game about pressing buttons. This repository contains the code of the game and the process of its development.