Code Monkey Ranch

Burning Man Earth API

2011-04-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Burning Man arts festival at Black Rock City, Nevada has been a huge source of creative inspiration for me. I'll describe more about that in time, but if you're curious, check out the website.

Burning Man has an API here. And I've started an open source project that will make use of it.

Black Rock City denizens are familiar with a phenomena called "Playa Time". In empirical terms, sense of time is affected by heat, dehydration, low blood sugar, adrenaline, alcohol, what-have-you, and it is very difficult to keep track of time even with a watch. In magical terms, you've entered fairly-land, and you're lucky if you only lose 3 hours. But there are hugely interesting events that happen throughout the week, and it's a shame to miss them. Sometimes these events don't make it into the Who-What-Where, the printed program of events.

This project is designed to mitigate all of that, by getting these events into other scheduling formats which can perhaps go onto your smart phone, note pad, mobile computer, laptop, brain implant, or some other future technology as-yet uninvented.

I'll describe this project more as time goes on. If you want to help out or contribute source code, let me know.

More on The Art Game Thing and Interactive Narrative

2011-04-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

In the last post I soft-launched a project that consumed me for awhile, and said that there are some things about it which are not being communicated to the user. Here I talk about that a bit.

Each map is a quest for the item on the upper left. Interposed between the player and the goal are a sequence of barriers. The barriers can be removed only using a certain combination of icons, some of which are found behind other barriers. Removing all of these barriers is the central activity of the map.

In traditional 3-act narrative, becoming aware of a goal is often known as the motivating incident, and in the narrative theory known as The Hero's Journey as Call To Action. The Goal can change in the course of a quest, but without a goal there is no story.

Also, according to traditional narrative theory, conflict is essential to any story. And, try as I might, I've never heard a story without it. The term 'conflict' confused me at first, because to my mind it invariably implies 'fighting' or 'arguing'. I think I'm not alone, because there is a definite bias in contemporary storytelling towards stories that center on conflict with people. But I find it makes more sense to think of so-called narrative conflict as 'resistance', or in a nutshell, 'removing barriers towards the attainment of a goal'

I've never seen any interactive piece that doesn't drive its plot, its quest, by way of the manipulation of items. By item I mean its normal definition: a sword, a heart, a key. The items are often, in fact usually, symbolic of more abstract moral concepts and emotions, but the succession of narrative acts, the resolution of conflict, the removal of barriers, are invariably signified by the use of items in some particular way. E.g. Which do you steal from the dragon's horde: the key that will rescue the princess, or the magic item that gives you limitless power?

I suspect the emotional tension that some of us feel over an unresolved puzzle is what allows our emotional state to be in tune with that of the interactive-narrative protagonist who feels tension over an unresolved conflict. Our solving a puzzle that represents a conflict puts our emotional timbre in alignment with that of the character who thus symbolically resolves the conflict. We were confused, frustrated, perhaps defeated, and now we feel relieved, accomplished, even powerful. This is why puzzles often drive the narrative in interactive fiction.

Quest structure is defined here as the sequence of barriers and the combinations of items necessary to remove them. Needing two items in combination to open a door is a different structure than needing to open a door with one item in order to open a second door with a second item, even though they both involve two items. In more concrete terms: "To Rescue the Princess, you must unlock the Dungeon with a Key and a Ring" is a different quest structure than "To Rescue the Princess, you must acquire a Ring and use it to defeat the Evil Wizard, who holds the Key to the Dungeon." Which is inherently more interesting?

In that way this art game thing is designed to explore the quest structure of interactive narrative. Each map corresponds to a traditional narrative story: attaining the goal is the Call to Adventure, and the barriers are conflicts which must be removed in order to attain the goal. As well, in terms of interactive narrative, removing the barriers is accomplished through finding and using items, as represented by icons. The structure of the quest is visually represented by the sequence of barriers and the various, random links between them.

Art Game ... Thing

2011-04-07T17:36:00.001-07:00

I made an art piece interactive game something! You can play it here: http://rendall.tv/symbols

More than building an Art Game Thing, I set out to learn how to complete a project with no guidance, feedback or having seen anything like it before. If I'm to live the kind of life I want to live, I will require that skill.

It feels like walking into completely unknown territory. Kind of scary, and I spent many daze avoiding the project. Much easier to click-trance, go for walks, download music & movies, call friends. I only finished because my self-imposed deadline loomed, and if I didn't complete it, it would never see the light of day, and then no one would know what I had been up to. It really does help to tell everyone you know.

It turns out that the process of getting self-produced projects completed as quickly as possible is rather simple, after all: get up, get dressed, then sit down whether you're inspired or not. Code.

It's that "whether inspired or not" part that's important. The inspiration was already done because I knew basically what I wanted to do. Progress was a matter of working out the details. The hardest part was pushing through even though I had never seen anything like this before. I imagine that people who write a novel have a similar difficulty.

Coding and concept is complete and I'm happy with the results. However, given feedback, I think there are aspects of the Art Game Thing that I see that aren't really showing up in the user experience. Next: implement some of the feedback I received, and add sound and illustration that underscore the aspects that I believe people don't see. Given that, I'm considering this version 0.9.

A modest first project. :)

Deep thanks to The Noun Project for existing. It served as both source and visual inspiration.

Reader-Friendly KeyCode Class for AS3

2011-02-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

Here are the keyboard's key code values in a handy cut-n-paste-ready AS3 format,
or you can use this KeyCode.as class instead.

public static const A : uint = 65;
public static const B : uint = 66;
public static const C : uint = 67;
public static const D : uint = 68;
public static const E : uint = 69;
public static const F : uint = 70;
public static const G : uint = 71;
public static const H : uint = 72;
public static const I : uint = 73;
public static const J : uint = 74;
public static const K : uint = 75;
public static const L : uint = 76;
public static const M : uint = 77;
public static const N : uint = 78;
public static const O : uint = 79;
public static const P : uint = 80;
public static const Q : uint = 81;
public static const R : uint = 82;
public static const S : uint = 83;
public static const T : uint = 84;
public static const U : uint = 85;
public static const V : uint = 86;
public static const W : uint = 87;
public static const X : uint = 88;
public static const Y : uint = 89;
public static const Z : uint = 90;

public static const TILDE : uint = 192;
public static const NUMBER_0 : uint = 48;
public static const NUMBER_1 : uint = 49;
public static const NUMBER_2 : uint = 50;
public static const NUMBER_3 : uint = 51;
public static const NUMBER_4 : uint = 52;
public static const NUMBER_5 : uint = 53;
public static const NUMBER_6 : uint = 54;
public static const NUMBER_7 : uint = 55;
public static const NUMBER_8 : uint = 56;
public static const NUMBER_9 : uint = 57;

public static const SPACEBAR : uint = 32;
public static const ENTER : uint = 13;
public static const CTRL : uint = 17;
public static const SHIFT : uint = 16;

public static const INSERT : uint = 45;
public static const DELETE : uint = 46;
public static const PAGE_UP : uint = 33;
public static const PAGE_DOWN : uint = 34;
public static const END : uint = 35;
public static const HOME : uint = 36;

public static const NUMPAD_0 : uint = 96;
public static const NUMPAD_1 : uint = 97;
public static const NUMPAD_2 : uint = 98;
public static const NUMPAD_3 : uint = 99;
public static const NUMPAD_4 : uint = 100;
public static const NUMPAD_5 : uint = 101;
public static const NUMPAD_6 : uint = 102;
public static const NUMPAD_7 : uint = 103;
public static const NUMPAD_8 : uint = 104;
public static const NUMPAD_9 : uint = 105;
public static const NUMPAD_DIVIDE : uint = 111;
public static const NUMPAD_MULTIPLY : uint = 106;
public static const NUMPAD_MINUS : uint = 109;
public static const NUMPAD_PLUS : uint = 107;
public static const NUMPAD_POINT : uint = 110;

public static const F1 : uint = 112;
public static const F2 : uint = 113;
public static const F3 : uint = 114;
public static const F4 : uint = 115;
public static const F5 : uint = 116;
public static const F6 : uint = 117;
public static const F7 : uint = 118;
public static const F8 : uint = 119;

public static const COMMA : uint = 188;
public static const PERIOD : uint = 190;
public static const SEMI_COLON : uint = 186;
public static const APOSTROPHE : uint = 222;
public static const LEFT_BRACKET : uint = 219;
public static const RIGHT_BRACKET : uint = 221;
public static const HYPHEN : uint = 189;
public static const PLUS : uint = 187;
public static const BACK_SLASH : uint = 220;
public static const FORWARD_SLASH : uint = 191;
public static const TAB : uint = 9;
public static const BACKSPACE : uint = 8;

public static const UP : uint = 38;
public static const DOWN : uint = 40;
public static const LEFT : uint = 37;
public static const RIGHT : uint = 39;

// alternately, same as UP,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT
public static const ARROW_UP : uint = 38;
public static const ARROW_DOWN : uint = 40;
public static const ARROW_LEFT : uint = 37;
public static const ARROW_RIGHT : uint = 39;

The canon Keyboard Class holds the values for all of the keys in human-friendly constants, but many of them, particularly the letter keys, are strictly AIR runtime only. The above code can be used in Flash and Flex too.

Tips:

An example of using the KeyboardEvent class is over on Adobe's support site.
To distinguish between upper and lower case letters, test the KeyboardEvent shiftKey boolean field, e.g.

if (keyEvent.keyCode==KeyCode.A && keyEvent.shiftKey==true) trace("Capital A pressed!");

Enjoy!

KeyCode.as

Scraping The Noun Project

2011-01-27T12:21:00.000-08:00

Exercise!

[Update below]

The Noun Project is a wonderful site to find open-license SVG-format icons for your project. However, the site is inconvenient for bulk acquisition because you must right-click and save each and every file individually. With over 500 as of this writing, that's quite a bit of work! And since the major browsers obfuscate their temporary internet files (I'm looking at you, Chrome and Firefox), scraping images from the cache is possible but tedious.

~~Here is one method to grab them all at once using a PC.~~

UPDATE: The Noun Project now uses javascript to draw the image onto the webpage, and so there are no separate SVG files in your browser's cache. I suspect that someday The Noun Project will have different packages available for download, including 'all of them'. For now: no bueno.

Hello world!

2011-01-11T13:01:00.001-08:00

Overtly, this blog is about sharing observations and trends on interactivity, code, physical computing, artwork and, occasionally, on New York City and the underground art-party community. Whew! I promise, they do link together in interesting ways. Or should, more.

The subtext is about pushing myself into greater engagement with the world, and creating new experiences for myself and others.

This blog will be a work in progress for awhile, perhaps indefinitely. Please expect unexpected changes to title, theme, direction, content. Although if there is a change in infrastructure, such as URL, I will absolutely let you know. At some point in the future, I do see moving past Blogger, but for now it suits.

Thank you for following!