Nien Lam

Interview with NY Daily News:

Commons is a game for urban communities to improve their city through citizen stewardship.

With Commons, you compete to do good, while problems in your city get fixed. Report a problem or recommend an improvement in your neighborhood that you think deserves attention and resources, and show your city some lovin’. Vote on the best reports and improvements, and see what’s most popular. Go on short missions around town to earn bonus points, and unlock City awards to level up through the game. Commons is brought to you by Suzanne Kirkpatrick, Jamie Lin and Nien Lam.

Visit our website, commonsthegame, for additional information.

Introducing ‘Commons’, winner of the Real-World Games for Change Challenge 2011, and the team behind the game.

A billiards style, turn based game, FUSSR uses Diffused Surface Illumination (DSI) technology to make touch table interaction responsive, attractive and fun. Pairing a tongue in cheek objective- breaking down walls- with Cold War aesthetics, this self contained game and installation aims to encourage social interactions with its multiplayer gameplay and curious aesthetic. FUSSR was designed and created by Nien Lam and Jason Aston.

Having shown a mutual interest in the art and challenge of gaming, we knew that creating one would be familiar but very difficult, as much peripheral interaction needs to be developed concomitant with the game dynamics and main interaction. We were also cognizant of the purchasing, building, and calibrating elements of the project as they related to the time allotted for completion.

We opted to build a non-traditional, 9 degree tapered table with a concrete/rock like facade. Here are our preliminary drawings and the frame.

The acrylic layers lay in a frame atop the table. Small harnesses and wooden racks were also built for the wonderfully clear internal projector- a ViewSonic short throw PJ558D, and a hacked PS3 eye camera.

After the framing was finished, our original plan was to source some concrete board for the paneling and skirting. Concrete board turned out to be too heavy for our purposes, so we went about using thin plywood with the intention to slather it with concrete or concrete like finish. We chose a type of splatter, speckled paint that mimicked stone.

Environmental Lights and Peau Productions were instrumental in working out the technical aspects of FUSSR. As said before, we used the DSI method of rear projection- involving a strip of infrared lights affixed to a slab of Endlighten acrylic. This acrylic layer has microscopic mirrors that reflect this light internally. Above this layer is a projection layer. And above this layer is a protective mar resistant layer, since the other two are so damn expensive.

Nien developed his own simple physics engine to drive the game, which consists of a ball, a slingshot, and little, colored walls that the player must destroy. This is an image of the earliest iteration without “skins.”

All of this sits atop real Berlin Wall graffiti.

After playtesting with several different groups, we discovered that having 4 players on the board makes it very difficult for any one player to keep track of the gameplay. We decided to make Gauntlet Chess a 1 player game for the iPhone. The object of the game is to move through the gauntlet and capture the king. This is an early prototype of the game mechanic and a couple of levels.

Gauntlet Chess is a re-imagined version of the age-old classic game. Instead of the standard 8×8 tiled board, this game board can be configured to have any shape and size. By changing the terrain, certain pieces may be more or less powerful during gameplay, thus creating new strategies and tactics. The initial version of the game was developed in Processing and designed for 2-4 players. Gauntlet Chess is a collaboration between myself, Sebastian Buys and Scott Wayne Indiana.

Clicking on a piece reveals all possible moves for that particular piece.

Triangle stack is a 3 player game where the objective is to reach the top before your other opponents. Players take turns placing triangles of alternating colors on the center pyramid. Players may only place triangles on the side facing them. Though the form works well for a 3 player game, an additional mechanic is required to make the gameplay more compelling and fun. One idea would be to add words on the triangles and require players to create phrases similar to refrigerator magnet poetry.

This is a modified version of the classic video game Pong where audience members can influence the outcome. When two people are playing Pong, audience members can use their mobile device to power up a side. If an audience member chooses to power up Player 2 by clicking the right button, Player 2′s paddle will be come larger and Player 1′s paddle will become smaller. The opposite will happen if the left button is clicked.

The concept of this piece is to let audience members feel part of the game. Similar to the TV show American Idol, viewers help determine the outcome of the show. Though based on the feedback from the people actually playing the game, they didn’t really feel like audience members were determining their fate. How well they played did not have a direct influence on which player received the power up. As for the audience members, they felt more like they were fighting each other and playing their own game then influencing the Pong game.

The gold version of Oilfish has arrived. The game tells you how to play, but just in case you can’t figure it out here the directions.

Objective:

 
Screen shots

Playable beta version of the game. We added enemies that chase you down.

The alpha version of Oilfish. This is a playable Level 1 of the game.
Two of your friends are hidden inside the maze and need rescuing.