TOC
Videos
Summary
Task List
Documentation -Software Development
Documentation - Open Show

Videos

December Screenrecord Playthrough

December Admin Mode tour

December Open Show video

Summary

I worked on Vignette #2 from mid-October to mid-December 2025, cumulating in an install over December 11th and 12th. The first day coincided with Open Show, an exhibition for Digital Futures graduate and undergraduate students. I was able to keep the room overnight to run more playtests the next day.

Software development during this time largely involved getting media saving to the hard drive and database integrity - boring but necessary structural work.

I also made a lot of QOL improvements to both the player and administrator interfaces of the software. To make navigation easier for players, and to make writing easier for me.

I created the ability to link between entries, and started installing some libraries for CSS effects to start making the database feel haunted, although the current effects are pretty tropey for now.

The exhibition included photos of where the materials were. I d

The most important feature I added was for the endgame - reading entries can now change game state variables, including a screen where players can upload their own artifacts.

On the software side, it's simply using a library that can embed a webcam, and save the data out into the existing media and entry databases. On the installation side, a webcam feed is booked up pointing down at the desk, and the entry directs players to the materials around them they can use to make something to line up under the camera as a forgery to sacrifice part of themselves.

I'm extremely please with this dynamic - having the physical world reflected in real time, especially one that players can put their own bodies under (most people waved their hands under to check the live feed on instinct) really demonstrates the fuzzy edge between digital and analogue and reality and fiction. Having players augment their own artifacts seemed very fun for them.

The fiction if this vignette was sadly did not come through very well. It came together much more firmly in my head while I was working on it - I now have names of characters and the screen names they use to represent themselves. Specific characters and some timelines for the original QVS. But due to time constraints, none of this is very clear in the actual vignette at all, even to the fragmentary standard I'm holding to. But I'm excited by the development as a rough sketch to improve on.

The QVS characters are really important because I can timeline out how they change, and therefore the values of the organization change, over time. Having real people with real dispositions and desires at the core is really important to pull this away from melodrama, where it currently lives. I am centering their archetypes around axises of faith vs skepticism, and later metaphysics vs religion. This should be fun to write because these are arguments I value and will have fun writing, and that I think make meaningful changes on how characters see the world when they transition their internal world veiw. And reflects arguments in myself that are sincere.

Important relationships between these characters are mentor/mentee, a rivalry one character fails to ever notice, and siblings. The historian begins their interest in the society as a whole, but than focuses in one one character and absorbed their obsession. Programmer does the same but with more fear. I think I need another invisible character that is me, as an unlabeled archive volunteer from the current organization who leaves notes and thumbnails speculating at missing entries.

Because of time constraints, many of the dates in the database are totally nonsensical in this chapter. Most of the entries don't really say anything about the lore or the world, but sound nice. I think the writing in this vignette is worse than the last.

I created a few artifacts for this chapter, this time with actual prop augmentations. I actually managed more fabrication than I did writing this time because I prioritized it more, hoping I would have time for more writing later, but that time was eaten by other logistics of the installation set up.

None of these artifacts are real narrative media yet - I cut the illustrations and paper work I intended for time, and ended up with big set peices that world set the mood more. I'm not yet happy with the visual language I made to show the entities effects on the items, but I'm happy I got to a place with a repeating visual pattern.

This playtest was the first after receiving REB approval to collect playtesting data, but the dry run was so dry not much data was collection. I got consent forms from around 12 sets of playtesters (around 3 sessions were pairs), but my video recording and telemetrics both screwed up, and the first day my exit form was not ready.

The only good data I got from the playtests were the webcam shots players submitted during the endgame, but sadly lost what players wrote about these items.

I was also about to conduct short exit interviews with each player. Despite my own disappointment with the installation, players game really good feedback and seemed to feel what I was trying to make them feel. I was especially pleased so many people felt nostalgia for time they had worked in places that reminded them of the one I made.

Tasks

Fiction

Planned

• Biological - mushrooms and plants blending into meat sort of - I forgot about the meat but ended up on this scarlet lichen that ended up looking like blood. I think I can make that lore a lot better, more specific and also more flexible. Like a coding language with patterns depending on the material. But since the artifacts are actually forgeries, it makes sense in-game that they're not all skillful.
• naturalist documents
• mushrooms with organs evolving in the root systems sort of - roots were floppy but writing references them being creepy
• plants from Mary's work, pressed and collected Got them, but they are mostly unaugmented and don't go anywhere, providing unintended and distracting patterns. This is an easy fix if I remember to do it.
• old journals collecting the plants barely - I got one letter.
• minutes from meeting of society arguing about what things mean (sort of- references to it)
• some stone art of the language moving from the stone to the plant (cut for time)
• woodcut of evil teenagers joining a lichen cult forgot about this
• Is there a way to make a million tiny triangles for this one? The entities are triggering better than they did when it was geology. red hot glue? Olivia's 3D pen? Embroidery thread or yarn? But some fake moss or lichen. Ended up with embroidery thread and painted hot glue. I do not like the way it looks but it's fine. I think when I can get illustrative representations of what it supposedly looked like to previous humans, it will feed better to me.

Executed Last minute

• Human bones with scarlet lichen (ended up looking like bloody veins though)
• Plants in jars
• Driftwood

Narrative Mechanics:

• Keep genders of archivists androgynous and ask people to describe the characters in the exit survey Forgot about the genders but asked about story - exit surveys are very lean though. I think I would get better feedback if I could somehow make filling out the surveys less rushed, like I can for remote playtests. Maybe I can have a calender reminder QR code so they can schedule their survey.

Conceptual Mechanics:

• Mechanics for bleed - these creatures are trying to occupy avatars in our reality **Still very lame and just dumb spooky text, but it's getting there. Lots of good feedback from playtesters digging into their own history in data entry and feeling like they are "at work." **
• Get a good mechanic in there where players HAVE to do something in meatspace to continue - what is this mechanic? Ended up working in the webcam to the software, so they're not just uploading files, they see their reality reflected in the software and need to create something to transfer over the divide. I asked them to make or sacrifice something from their pockets, and people really liked that - I told them they were leaving part of themselves behind and I got some grins. I am extremely happy this came together almost by accident.
• The immersive installation is doing a ton of leg work for bleed, even if it looks pretty sparse in the light of day. I think the lighting really helps. They are still walking through a door, but I think that's necessary, and still not a hard line, especially with me walking them in from outside, so the installation extends out of the door a bit through my performance.

Bug Fixes and technical Features

Vignette 1 - September-October - Spark Build

• make other database! electron builder? Kept spreadsheet for now. People like it but the terminal will prevent brute-forcing more.
• Minify or save images to hard disk Local File Storage Made Simple Dexie GitHub - imagemin/imagemin: Minify images seamlessly This was the hardest part. I needed to use copilot AI for this a lot because I was totally stuck, it's way over my head. But it's done!!!
• workflow for entries from obsidian to JSON **Not necessary. Made a web veiw instead, waaaay easier to write. **
• web view -How to View the Google Chrome Console on Android - YouTube
  • Check that the database is very secure, saving to webspace so it can be backed up?
  • Check that "append" checks the last edit date, and uses the most recent edit from the two databases. Fail for now.
• Change look of text boxes when they've been edited since last save
• register page
  • (Variable for entities to reference info?) I don't think I want it in the story it should happen later, but should prep for it when making registration page
• Make Logs less janky
• Make metadata change colour when unread - i got this working, but I need to get "MARKIING" it as read again working
• Players need to find the "correct" image in the data?
• submited can have multiple parent IDs which display as footnotes underneath, so players need to look up the hex. Did this as "linked entry" hyperlinks. Only links to entries and not subentries so far
• Autoupdates:
  • minimum hex from parent
  • creation and last modified from parent
  • last modified from creation
  • researcher and last edit by from parent

Lots of QOL updates to the way entries are listed so I get less lost as I'm writing.

Now I can read descriptions from the list, and filter by what vignette I'm working on. It save the sort in the gamelogic so it is persistent when I leave the page.

Also fixed up the Display date to be less of a nightmare.

mouse cursor stuff

Smooth Cursor | React Components & Templates

other end game animations

Flickering Grid | React Components & Templates

Documentation of software Development

The final software for this showcase is 0.7.2
Get Media Upload working

Finally, I have gotten to the stage of building debug panels!!! game time is on

Writing characters for Vignette 2

Documentation from Install Playtest - Open Show

notes from openshow

• holy shit, do not make the installation that accessible again
• set up an actual little desk outside to have forms and stuff on.
• sign up sheet, maybe booking software so people can sign up way in advance. Calendy?
• display signup on an iPad outside? Fill out consent form on the iPad?
• I don't think so but could be fun to wiggle the mouse on them while they're playing. Performance aspect but thats too much extra work.
• honorarium to hire someone to help me. Trying to interview people coming out of the room at the same time as prepping people to enter the room is too much and makes people wait.
• helper also needs to take photos because I find it sooooo awkward
• fucked up exit form. Noooo. It's written up now and I'll send it to the people I know who played.
• how to balance wanting people to feel like they have privacy vs collecting playtesting data? Never tested a game that relies so much on atmosphere, only run one.

Notes from Playtesters

1

Make it clearer where to start
Make sure there are bad hashes at the top of the sheet
Imported a bunch, and the started reading and following interest
Fix width of metadata on log page
(Fit to content)

• could have missed shaking red text gamification

2

• Very immersive
• objects holding memories
• asking about other players and the artifacts that they sacrificed

3

• Gamification fun data entry - humans drive to complete things
• didn't like differet interface at first, difficult to use but got into it
• felt connected to the setting. Camera brought it it into the real world
• Mapped to real world - didn't notice camera was live until the end
• cathode ray is cool but strange to use two screens
• nostalgia for data entry jobs, even if they were terrible. Competition with others who use the same data.

4

I am here to work
I feel betrayed! They asked for help and then took me.
Startled when the button shook.
Very immersive

Suggested artist

3 & 4

Good bread vrubing
Good learning flow
Earnest Oracle illustrator
Promoted to find the missing article
Anna serano?
Installation
Caroline Langille vapa? Curator and objects specialisation, new media
Andrea Fantino faculty of Arts center for black Diaspora

Challenges & Solutions

Rush to print and have consent forms ready and readable
Display earlier pages and have single sheet for signing like Snow

Massive Performance and social anxiety during exhibition
Most playtests won't be in this context. Hire help to cover if you step out. Schedule in breaks between testers to calm down and check telemetrics and recordings.

No exit survey
Exit survey is finished now, can always use the same one if needed.

Players aren't very detailed in exit form.
Somehow to remind them to fill it in later? More less chaotic seating outside to fill in?

Telemetrics broke
Make sure to test during location install that telemetrics are working and saving. Don't trust the move.

Almost no recording
Don't try a GoPro next time, get a real camera. Maybe you can set OBS to record screen and webcam to a hard drive in real time, make this easy to turn off and on. Ask friend to take charge of recording and photography.

Dates and names are terrible and confusing
This ended up half done and needs a lot of massaging, but will come together with writing.

Adding much of this to tasks for Vignette 3 - January