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The Thing Growing: Act 2: In which the user dances with the Thing

The Thing encourages the user to move her physical arms and body, and dance. Information from the trackers the user wears, tell the Thing if the user is really trying. Information from the joystick reveals whether the user is paying attention and learning or sneaking away.

The Thing's intelligence then picks a response to the user; praising or complaining, teaching a new dance step, going over a step copied badly. In this act the interaction is designed to be so natural as to be invisible. The crucial element is that the Thing's reactions fit the user's actions.

The visual and sound design of the piece convey a cartoony, fairy-tale innocence. The visuals are primitive, the sound design hearkens back to radio stories, with the narrator creating the special effects as well as all the voices. This innocent facade is designed to win the user's trust. At first the ideal user thinks the Thing is cute and funny and is willing to try and dance. The fact that it pretended to be a sweet little kitten to get out of the box is the first hint, however, that it is a duplicitous Thing.

And so the story line moves along. As the dance lesson continues the Thing reveals more and more of its character. It will flatter, coax, whine, beg, or threaten to get its way. And it gets pickier and pickier about the dancing. The ideal user feels more and more cramped and overwhelmed by its demands. But if she tries to run away, the Thing follows crying or shouting, insisting on its love, insisting on the dance.

The story moves on to the next stage depending on the user's attitude or on a time interval. The Thing becomes enraged either at the user's refusal to dance or her inability to dance well enough and storms off.

As soon as the Thing has gone, the rocks that burst out of the box onto the plain start moving. They hustle around the user, getting closer and closer, herding her.
When one get close enough it will rear up and try to grab her.

Eventually one of them succeeds. The user finds that her navigation is disabled and she is trapped beneath a slurping rock.

The Thing returns to tell the user, that the rock is dripping acid on her, in preparation for eating her. However, if the user is nice to Thing - ie dances with it - it will get her out.

This creates a symmetry in the story-line. First the user released the Thing, now the Thing releases the user.

The second act as a whole is designed to make the user wary of the Thing. It's behavior has undercut her initial assumptions. It can be nice but it is clearly manipulative and dominating.

Act 3