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Circle
Maze
Overview
The Circle
Maze is a multi-user interactive musical game that encourages
team building and collaboration. By combining novel input devices
with real-time computer graphics on an integrated tabletop surface,
the Circle Maze brings together a group of players to participate
in group gaming and music-making. Each player has a Lazy-Susan-like
input device with which they control visual and aural facets of
the game.
Description
The high-level
objective for the players of this experience is to collect all of
the Circle Maze's pieces in the middle of the game board. Each of
the three rings is filled with maze-like paths, some providing the
pieces a route from one ring to another, some looping the pieces
back into the ring from which they came. Each of the players is
in control of the rotation of one ring. Players turn their ring
by turning a wooden disk attached to the side of the Jam-O-Drum.
The rings affect one of the musical tracks through their absolute
rotation - as a player turns their ring, they mix their track from
among several complementary loops.
The
circle maze has a new interface for the new Jam-O-Drum
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At
the beginning of the experience, a number of pieces are distributed
throughout the outer ring of the maze. Each of the many pieces
moves blindly through the maze, pulsing to the rhythm of the music.
If the paths from one ring to another align, a piece will cross
into the new ring; however, if a piece hits a wall, it will simply
reverse its direction. When pieces enter the center circle, they
cease moving but continue to pulse to the beat.
Goals
of the Project
The Circle
Maze is a relative of the Jam-O-Drum (SIGGRAPH 2000), which was
developed at Interval Research between July 1998 and January 1999.
Their goal was to enable novice music makers to experience the
joys of creating music as an ensemble in a casual social setting
with real-time video and computer graphics. Building upon this
early prototype, the team have developed a new music making experience,
the Circle Maze.
The primary
goal for the Circle Maze was to design a game that furthered communication
and collaboration among its players. The task for the players
is to guide all of the game's pieces to the middle of the maze.
Because the maze is divided into concentric rings, the pieces
must pass through each ring in turn; thus, all the players must
work together to achieve this goal. Movement of the pieces and
rings produces changes in the musical score - as a player turns
their ring, they alter their contribution to the ensemble. Players
of the Circle Maze are involved not only in a goal-oriented game,
but also in a collaborative music-making experience.
The most important
requirement of the players is that they are able to work together
as a team. No musical experience is required because any movement
of the rings produces a complementary musical effect. Many individuals
who will normally not participate in a musical activity because
of their fears of public performance may approach the Circle Maze
because of its game-like interaction and appearance. Only afterwards
might a participant realize they have been playing an unusual
instrument.
Future
Potential
The Circle
Maze is viewed as a single step in the continuing research into
communal music-making experiences. There are several larger research
questions the developers hope to address, such as "How does one
encourage spontaneous, non-self-conscious music making?" "How
does one facilitate real time collective experiences among strangers?"
and "How does one best introduce a novice musician to the world
of music-making?" The team continue to explore interaction designs
and input devices that integrate a variety of approaches to combining
elements of motion in music and graphics.
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