Artifact Descriptions

This project contains five different artifacts used to transmit my manifesto's message. They are the Makey Makey, the Arduino, painting/collaging, audio, and creative writing.

The Makey Makey was used to create the interactive controller one can play the game with. Every wire connected to a metallic element of the diary is connected to the Makey Makey, which acts as a keyboard and allows different actions to be triggered in the game. This is why you need to wear the metal bracelet while playing the game: one needs to be connected to "earth" on the Makey Makey for commands to work properly.

The Arduino was originally meant to be used in the place of the Makey Makey, but running into issues with the Unity software (which you can read about in the "About the Project" section), I ended up using it as a switch to trigger some quotes to appear on screen which were significant to my theme. I had already wired the Arduino and spent a decent amount of time coding within its software, which motivated me to change my idea instead of putting the Arduino completely to the side. It makes my exhibition a bit "more" than just the game, which I am actually pretty happy about.

For both the journal and the game itself, I painted and collaged many elements, both in real life and online. The diary was made from a cheap sketchbook and everything inside was handmade, down to the new binding which I remade myself. I wanted it to be as personalized as it could be to make it feel like a real journal. I printed the writing directly on the pages to ensure it would be legible for everyone. I needed the game to match the aesthetics of the already made diary, so there was quite a bit of collaging to do on Google Slides, with the use of a lot of shapes.

The audio felt necessary to make the game a bit more immersive. Now, I am definitely not an actor/audio artist and my first language is also not english, but I felt I needed to step out of my comfort zone a bit for the game not to be completely silent for players.

Finally, the creative writing part was the one that came the most naturally due to it being what I studied most within the Cinema and Communications program at Dawson. Maude's story was basically comepletely made up in my mind before I even started planning out how I would create the game. It was theoretically the most important part, because without writing, there would have been no journal.