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The Thing Growing: Revisions 1999/2000


old thing

new thing
 		 By the summer of 1999 I had a first version of the complete story working. Feedback from my committee and observation of users indicated several major problems that needed to be addressed for the project to successfully communicate its story. 

First some users had difficulty discerning the Thing's body. It is a collection of pyramids "tied" together my the motion captured movement. I expected people to move their arms in the same way that the Thing moved it's arms. Some users, however, simply wriggled about like hypnotized snakes - I realized that they were trying to copy the Thing's tail movements. Adding a verbal injunction to "move your arms and body like mine - don't worry about the tail," did not fully fix the problem. Dan Sandin suggested outlining the Thing's body and de-emphasizing the tail. This new look helped people to correctly identify the body and move their own bodies' accordingly. 
A second and related problem was to clearly indicate to people that they had to move their bodies during the dancing sequence, and that the Thing "knew" what they were doing. Some users, especially expert users, thought that they should use the joystick and buttons to dance - this resulted in the Thing rushing after them and chiding them for moving away. They would then try to use the joystick to drive close to the Thing, which it would continue to interpret as "driving away" behavior.  Confusion would ensue with the user muttering, "I'm just trying to get close."  Other users would only dance with one arm - although in the final version both arms are being tracked. 

To solve these problems I inserted some new behavior at the very beginning of the dance sequence. The Thing announces that it will show the user how to dance, then says that they must "loosen up a little first." It instructs the user to wave her arms above her head. The program performs checks to see : 

  1. if the joystick or buttons are pressed - if so the user is instructed not to touch the buttons but to move only the body 
  2. if the user is moving both arms - if not the user is instructed to move both arms 
  3.  if the user is trying hard enough, i.e.. are they waving there arms high enough - if so the Thing proceeds to teach the first dance step 
This new sequence established at the outset the rules for the dancing and that the Thing knew what the user was doing. It seemed to successfully nip in the bud the former problems. 
Three other problems were more to do with content than technical issues. In the first draft the Thing was simply too unpleasant and people nearly always shot it as soon as they were given the chance. Ideally I wanted the user to be more ambivalent. There was also a timing problem. In the second act the Thing danced with the user, then stormed off in a huff. The rocks on the plain then chased and trapped the user. The user had barely been released from that trap when the third act was triggered and the user was again trapped while the four cousins berated the Thing. This period of inactivity (in-interactivity) for the user, was too long. Third, the transition between the second and third acts was too abrupt - people were confused about what had happened and did not understand who the cousins were. Some users believed that they had come to save them from the Thing, rather than feeling that they were now on the same side as the Thing and in deep trouble. 
The solutions for these problems were interdependent, but I will describe them as they happen chronologically in the story. First I added a new behavior in which the Thing now copies the user's movements and inserted this after the user is released from the rock. The Thing says, "Let's do something different - you dance and I'll copy." The user discovers that as she moves her arms and head the Thing moves with her. Basically we took the tracking data from the user and applied it to the Thing's body with a slight delay. It is strangely flattering - because the Thing becomes a mirror of our own idiosyncratic movement. The Thing becomes very seductive while this is going on. And the user feels that she is now in control. So this small new scene, lasting about 40 seconds serves two purposes. It makes the user "like" the Thing more - we like the thing that does what we want - and it breaks up the two periods where the user is trapped and unable to interact. 
Second I added a more elaborate transition scene between the second and third acts. The user is now happily dancing with the Thing copying her. Suddenly lightning crashes across the sky, the sky darkens and a god-like voice out of nowhere booms, "What's going on here?"  Another higher voice cries, "We must stop this evil!" A lightning bolt flashes towards the user, cracks appear in the ground and the user and the Thing fall through a red trench into a world below. This is the territory of the four cousins. 

Third I revised the Thing's speeches and the four cousins behavior thoughout the third act to clarify the back story- the taboo relationship which user and Thing have been caught in. Now as the four cousins approach, the Thing whispers asides that reveal that the dancing behavior that they were indulging in is heresy if it takes place between a meat-object, the user, and a Thing.  As before the four cousins berate the Thing, but now they are more vicious and pull off its arm. This is to encourage the user to feel more protective of the Thing. 

During the sequence where the user shoots at the cousins, all the Thing's phrases were revised. Many of them give more information about the back story. The Thing's mood and behavior also alter more radically depending on the user. If the user can't or won't shoot the cousins, the Thing begs her to protect it, and finally becomes furious and abusive. On the other hand if the user does shoot the cousins, and the faster she shoots, the Thing begins to have second thoughts and begs the user to spare her family members. All this is designed to increase the user's ambivalence towards the Thing. 

Feedback from users and my committee indicated that these fixes, which comprised a second draft of the project,  conveyed the story much more completely.  The entire experience in this final version lasted between 10-15 minutes depending on the user. The final version first showed at my MFA show.