In NomCatchWink: The Playformance, I am using gamification, body recognition and playful design with a dash of irony to address and criticise the performative behaviours on social media.
The project is a playable experience, connected to a database that acts as a gamified platform. It includes a set of three simple camera-based games, each of them targeting specific behaviours inspired by specific social media platforms that we use to represent us online.
The goal is to create an engaging experience, that brings fun to the player, yet allows them to critically reflect and question the performative nature and possible negative or toxic side of social media.
A concept that didn’t make it through. It was inspired by my research on how actors are perfecting their skills for stage, and the tutorials they create for people. Following that, I wanted to create a play-guide on how to create a perfect performance, divided into three categories that actors focus on when practising their skills. 01: Face and Expressions (WINK WINK), 02: Languege (NOM NOM) and 03: Body Movement: (CATCH CATCH). It was a fun concept, however, after all, I reflected and realised creating a guide/tutorial, takes the idea of a game and gamification away, also it was missing the moment of creating a platform, which better alligns with my enquiry focusing on social media.
A CONCEPT THAT DID MAKE IT 🙂
THE PLAYFORMANCE
In the concept of THE PLAYFORMANCE, I tried to find a way of adding motivation for all three games to frame them together. The motivation comes in the form of achievement badges that the player aims to reach through playing. The achievements were inspired by very simple motivation that is used in a lot of simple games, but also by achievements on social media you can get for engaging on social media – such as on Instagram)
The achievement badges as a motivation for a player.
Together, the games are framed into a playable platform with the collective gallery, that is connected into a database. The platform is sitting between a game – collecting achievements, playing the games & ”social” platform – Chats that generate random comments from a small database, each time the player plays, the comments will be different.
I was also playing with language in the games and in the platform – imagine there is a dialogue between the “quirky/cringy” tone and a grey suit man – example “OMG SO MUCH FUN! paired with something serious like “Playing can lead to addictive behaviour”
Feedback that helped me to take the whole concept further: Elements to spark criticality
During the Make a Thon session I had a great feedback session with Owen. He recommended me Implementing to add a few “bad” elements to each game that don’t belong to add criticality and unexpected moments – negative reactions, words and images, to reflect the toxicity of socials and emphasize that these spaces also bring negative things, that are happening while we ar performing our dances. The idea was to add just a few elements from now and then as a surprise that sparks the criticality about the social media spaces
