University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Timension

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Timension

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TIMENSION
by
Yun Dai

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)

May 2012

Copyright 2012 Yun Dai
ii

Only time (whatever that may be) will tell.
—Stephen Hawking

iii

Dedication

I dedicate this thesis to my family who supports me in everything, to all my friends who
helped me finished this project, to all the people that love games and animations, and to
everyone who never gives up chasing the answers in our endless journey.
iv

Acknowledgments

I would never have been able to finish my thesis without the guidance of my committee
members, help from friends, and support from my family.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my committee members: Chris Swain,
Marientina Gotsis, and Vincent Diamante, for their excellent guidance, caring, and
patience during the past year. I would like to thank Prof. Itzhak Bars, who offered much
advice and insight about time and the project from a physicist’s perspective throughout
the year. I would also like to thank Steve Anderson, Adrienne Capirchio, Jeremy Gibson,
Mark Bolas, Laird Malamed, Tracy Fullerton, and all of our IMD faculty members, for
giving me tremendous helps, equipping me with priceless knowledge and providing me
with an open atmosphere for doing research. Special thanks go to Prof. Michael Zyda,
who kindly provided me the devices that I needed for development and testing at the
most critical moment of the project.

I would like to thank Tina Tian, who as a good programmer, a great companion and the
only team member of my project, was always willing to fulfill all my unreasonable
design requirements and give her best suggestions. It would have been a lonely journey
without her. Many thanks to Greg Nishikawa and Tiger Brooke for patiently editing my
writing and making their support available in a lot of ways. I would also like to thank all
v

my classmates for all their support, feedback, inspiration and companionship during the
past three years.

I would also like to thank my family. They were always supporting me and encouraging
me with their best wishes.
vi

Table of Contents
Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi
List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii
Abstract ............................................................................................................................ viii
Chapter One: The Origins ................................................................................................... 1
Time ................................................................................................................................ 2
Animation and Games .................................................................................................... 5
Chapter One Endnotes .................................................................................................. 11
Chapter Two: Prior Art ..................................................................................................... 12
Zoetrope ........................................................................................................................ 12
Time in Different Forms ............................................................................................... 13
Chapter Two Endnotes .................................................................................................. 17
Chapter Three: Prototypes and Observations ................................................................... 18
Phase I — small various prototypes ............................................................................. 20
Clock vs. Timeline—Prototype Clock .................................................................. 20
Prototype Astronauts and Bus ............................................................................... 26
Demo Kiween ........................................................................................................ 30
Phase II — prototype Zoetrope series with its small sub-versions ............................... 32
Version OldMovie ................................................................................................. 32
Version Relativity.................................................................................................. 38
Chapter Four: Conclusions ............................................................................................... 43
References ......................................................................................................................... 45
vii

List of Figures
Figure 1: Sample of Classic Zoetrope ............................................................................... 12
Figure 2: Photos of Modern Zoetrope Installations .......................................................... 14
Figure 3: —All You Zombies — timeline ........................................................................... 15
Figure 4: Clock Screenshot ............................................................................................... 21
Figure 5: Astronauts Screenshot ....................................................................................... 26
Figure 6: Bus Screenshot .................................................................................................. 27
Figure 7: Kiween Screenshot ............................................................................................ 30
Figure 8: OldMovie Screenshot ........................................................................................ 33
Figure 9: OldMovie Instruction Screen ............................................................................. 33
Figure 10: Relativity Screenshot ....................................................................................... 38
Figure 11: Relativity Screenshot II ................................................................................... 39
viii

Abstract
Timension is a thesis project based on an exploration of the concept of the zoetrope, to
communicate stories about the notion of time that is embedded in people’s lives. This
project was an experiment in designing a series of interactive media prototypes exploring
time, animation, and storytelling. This paper summarizes the motivation behind the
project, an overview of relevant prior art, the year-long creative process involved in
prototype design, and an evaluation of four key prototypes that led to the final product
that will be exhibited at the annual Interactive Media Division group thesis show at the
USC School of Cinematic Arts.

The final product is a virtual toy for the iPad using multiple zoetropes. Each zoetrope
spins to display animation using the same visual principles of a real zoetrope. One of the
zoetropes represents the life of a Girl and one represents the life of a Boy. Swiping the
virtual Boy or Girl zoetrope, using the same gesture one uses to operate a real zoetrope,
sets the Boy’s or Girl’s life in motion. The iPad multi-touch capabilities also enable
additional interesting ways to control the zoetrope, such as pinching, spreading, or
scrolling using multi-touch gestures. Using their fingers, users can modulate the timing in
both the Girl’s life and the Boy’s life independently, while each character’s changes can
only be seen from the other character’s perspective. This paper documents variations in
the final prototype that aim to solve the design challenge of enabling the users to
visualize and experiment with the serendipity of overlapping the Girl and Boy’s lives.
The users can project their own meaning into the project. The Girl and Boy were chosen
ix

as a theme to evoke empathy, since one may interpret it as a parable meant to
communicate the difficulty, beauty, and role of forces outside any individual’s control in
bringing two people together in an unpredictable relationship.

Key Words: Timension, time, interactive toy, zoetrope, animation, iPad.
1

Chapter One: The Origins
—Where Does This Come From

I love playing with ideas about time. Since we are creatures living in the third dimension,
it's hard for us to see things in other dimensions or see the connections among them
clearly. Thus, there's a lot of potential for imagination and exploration. Furthermore, in
the dimension of the Noosphere,
*
reality is constantly in tension between different
dimensions. Special moments and critical decisions drive people to think about and find
their own answers, and those eventually become the basis of their lives. Time becomes
nothing else but those memorable moments.

There are many examples of media that are good at evoking emotional and meaningful
thoughts. Books engage people into a thoughtful process by communicating ideas,
thoughts, and experiences through non-graphical letters, while paintings blow people’s
mind instantaneously using remarkable visual expressions. While they are both valuable
and important, what’s more important is to choose a form that can communicate the
creator’s idea to people he or she wants to reach. If ―tragedies destroy the treasurable
things of life in front of people, while comedies tear apart all the worthless ones‖,
1
I just
want to present a way of experiencing time to people, where they can decide whether it is
a comedy or tragedy, and maybe find out what is valuable to them.

*
Noosphere: the ―sphere of human thought‖ as stated by Georgy S. Levit, the ―thinking envelope of the
biosphere‖ and the ―conscious unity of souls‖ as stated by David H. Lane. More information can be found
at the website of Foundation for the law of time founded by José Argüelles.

2

As a game designer, all I have is a game to invite others into my solitary experience of
abstract thinking, —my silent moments inside the crowded world. Through my games, I
am asking others to become part of the endless journey of looking for answers.

One year ago, I decided to begin making experiments about deconstructing and
reconstructing different aspects of time, and using games as a the delivery platform for
bringing the experience to other people. The original objective was to combine a rule-
based puzzle game with some meaningful storytelling elements in a way that people will
enjoy and find evoking, rather than being confused by the disconnection between them.
This experimentation led to the development of Timension, to this paper and to a review
of ideas, which will be explained below.

Time

―Time‖ as a word, can usually be interpreted as a noun, a verb, or an adjective, and each
of them also has a lot of different but interesting usages. While Timension mainly focuses
on exploring ―time‖ as a noun, and more than 20 meanings of ―time‖ as a noun can be
found in almost any dictionary, the goal of Timension is not to play with the different
definitions or subtle factors, but to explore the philosophical, scientific, or psychological
nature behind the concept of ―time‖.

3

In the 1968 version International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,
2
time is described
as ―a dimension of our experience and our activity, but this dimension does not
correspond to a simple physical reality‖, and its concept is imposed on people by their
experience of changes. When discussing about it, it is very important to distinguish two
fundamental aspects: 1) the sequence, the order of the changes; 2) the duration of the
changes or of the period between them.

Going through different definitions about time in
different dictionaries, a few words stand out, which could be a hint to understand how
―time‖ is generally perceived by people. Some of these words include: experience of
changes, sequence, order, duration, interval and measurement.

When I looked into some more academic sources, I found that some similar aspects of
time are described in slightly different ways. In those sources, time becomes a tool that
we use to place events in sequence one after the other, to compare how long an event
lasts, and to tell when an event occurs.
3
However, these sources don't answer what time is
and they generate more questions about the true nature of time, whether time exists when
nothing is changing, about how we can analyze the metaphor of time's flow, about the
aspects of time that are conventional and about why time one-dimensional and not two-
dimensional. Just like in the popular-science book A Brief History of Time written by
British physicist Stephen Hawking, despite that a lot of time related subjects are
introduced and defined, or fully elaborated, ―time itself‖ is only referred to as ―time
(whatever that may be)‖.
4

4

Furthermore, two contrasting viewpoints on ―time‖ divide many prominent philosophers.
One view is that ―time‖ is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension
in which events occur in sequence, and it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.
5

Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility, as treating ―times‖ as individual frames
of a film strip, spread out across the time line. The opposing view is that ―time‖ does not
refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity
that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure within which
humans sequence and compare events. This second view holds that ―time‖ is neither an
event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled.
6

I found that, by not defining what time "is" and by asking questions and offering
juxtaposing thoughts, these resources provided wider and more interesting perspectives.
These perspectives were more useful as sources of experimentation for the design
problems of Timension. If we remember time not by referring to timers, but by
recognizing changes that happen inside ourselves and interacting with objects around
us—we need evidences to recognize changes, and to perceive the existence of time, then
if nothing happened, and everything stopped, can we still differentiate one second or one
million years? On the other hand, while there are unlimited things could happen in next
minute, and anyone of them is only one of the infinite, how we acquired, or being
endowed all the distinctive but valuable memories we have? More importantly, why only
certain people shared those special moments, and thus have their lives, their timelines,
their perceptions of time collided with each other?
5

However, there are so many questions, and they are questions appeal to me, not other
people. If there should be only one question answered in Timension, rather than choosing
the one that I am interested in, I would like to have something that could push people to
ask questions by themselves and start to look for the answers.

Therefore, time is nothing more than an origin point that positions and interprets the
whole project. Timenstion, started with picturing time with its classic periodical
representatives, is on its way of seeking new perspectives to let people approach time,
observe the world, and maybe understand ourselves.

Animation and Games

There are always thousands of ways to explore an idea, and probably even more ways to
represent them. The form, or medium, is what makes those explorations accessible to
others, and in reverse, they influence and shape the experience, in a good or bad way.

* * *

Animation: the technique of filming successive drawings or
positions of puppets or models to create an illusion of movement
when the movie is shown as a sequence.
7

Basically, animation is a series of still images viewing in rapid succession, which gives
the impression of a moving picture. The word derives from the Latin words anima
6

meaning life, and animare meaning to breathe life into. People invented various
techniques to give the impression throughout human history, such as cave drawings
depicted animals with their legs overlapping so that they appeared to be running. Its
properties can be seen in Asian puppet shows, Greek bas-relief, Egyptian funeral
paintings, medieval stained glass, and modern comic strips.
8

Ancient animation methodologies date back to the old Chinese zoetrope-like device,
which was invented in 180 AD, making the concept of animation one of the oldest
medium of portraying people and their world. After adapting modern technologies and
techniques, it also becomes a powerful way of evoking people’s emotions. Being part of
the modern motion picture family, animation’s development and production have grown
rapidly during the last century.

Although the quality of the original images is important, equally important is the quality
of the sequence through which action, character, and story development are portrayed.
There must be a coherent pattern to the action. Animation usually employs a common
story structure introduces characters, a source of conflict, the development of this conflict,
a climax, and finally a resolution.
9
However, it can also be more fluid, including the
creation of forms or simple images, some interaction of them, and then a transformation
or transmutation,

such as colored lines and geometries floating around, mixing and
separating, scaling and rotating, composed to be a visual expression of music.

7

As an ancient form of art, and a powerful medium with its long-lasting history of
recording the world, animation is a special way to represent time. From the old concept
of a sequence of individual frames, to the modern technologies that use keyframes and in-
betweens, it has always been about events and their intervals, changes and their durations.
It is all about time.

However, although appearing in almost every game, animation has barely stepped into
the field of interactive media with its own identity.

* * *

Game: a form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played
according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.
10

Games and their artifacts probably existed before humans started to record their thoughts
on what time might be. As a game designer, it would probably take a few hours to talk
about the definitions of games before connecting it to time, which is obviously not the
purpose of Timension. It is just worth pointing out that games have much wider
boundaries than just video games or console games, and should always have a larger
meaning than just sitting in front of a computer, or holding a device. In my opinion, any
human activity could be treated as a game. If it is also fun, people would usually like to
reiterate it, sometimes through generations. Before we started to study the design process
of games, we had already got thousands of games that been played for years. There are
short ones that people can play in a few hours, like Chess, Go, or Hide and Seek, but
8

there are also ones that takes relative long time, like the real ―Chess‖, ―Go‖ and ―Hide
and Seek‖, some of them we may call them ―wars’. From another perspective, wars can
happen on a board or between countries. Traditionally, people participate in small playful
events, as well as their projections in large scale in the real world, or vice versa.

When I looked for different definitions of game, one of them caught my eyes. According
to game designer Chris Crawford, as stated in his book Chris Crawford on Game Design,
games, puzzles, toys, and stories are four distinct play activities (playthings) that range
from most to least interactive.
11

To me, they are all microcosms of our world–representing, recording, distorting, or
beautifying people's experience about things happened, and allowing people to mimic,
exercise, precast the unpredictable future. They are interactivities that require different
ways of communication. A toy, even though we do not usually have a goal in mind while
playing with it, if we are actively engaged with it or sometimes the people we are playing
with, we still build up special relationships and unique experience through time.
Otherwise, Toy Story series
12
probably would have not touched so many adults that no
longer play with toys every day. If we think of animations as mainly non-interactive
stories, it puts games and animations on two opposite sides of a scale, making them seem
incompatible with each other. Nevertheless, the interesting part about this way of
thinking is that all four activities it differentiates appeared in the year-long development
of Timension, although not simultaneously. Different prototypes range from highly
9

challenging to simply narrative, testing people’s muscle memories or evoking people’s
feeling of happiness. Because of the diverse process, the whole project was initiated as a
puzzle game but ended up as an interactive toy.

Time is involved in a lot of games as a fundamental element of their systems, placing
constraints and producing pressures, like physical running competitions in Olympic
Games or virtual time management games like Diner Dash.
13
It is also often used as a
story element in fantasy game worlds to create interesting and special experiences, like
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy
14
and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
15

and Ocarina of Time.
16
On the contrary, not many games are trying to incorporate time
into their mechanics and twist the way people usually see or think about it, which makes
time an interesting topic for Timension.

Games and animations are both powerful media, and great art forms that have been
involved in human history, but they have not integrated with each other that much in the
interactive world. Most modern digital games borrowed stories from animations, or used
clips of animations to enhance their visual, but to some extent they are all really the same
to me. Assume the nature of time is not absolute—it is an intellectual product of the way
we represent things, animations and games are the most appropriate forms for Timension
to present the contents, highlighting time’s different aspects.

10

Timension was initially a puzzle game, but after being inspired by some of the thoughts
about time and principles of animation, its identity was inevitably influenced by the
whole experimenting process, and grew into something different than I could ever have
designed for it.
11

Chapter One Endnotes

1
Xun Lu, "Second Comment on the Collapse of Leifeng Pagoda," Yusi, February 23, 1925.

2
"Time." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968, Encyclopedia.com, (March 28, 2012),
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045001261.html.

3
Bradley Dowden, ―Time,‖ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, iep.utm.edu,
(March 28, 2012), http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/.

4
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, Bantam Dell Publishing Group, 1988.

5
Robert Rynasiewicz, Edward N. Zalta, ed., "Newton's Views on Space, Time, and Motion," The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), (March 28, 2012),
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/newton-stm/; Ned Markosian, Edward N. Zalta, ed.,
"Time," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), (March 28, 2012),
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2010/entries/time/.

6
Matt McCormick, ―Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics,‖ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-
0002, iep.utm.edu, (March 28, 2012), http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/#H4; Douglas Burnham, " Leibniz:
Metaphysics," The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, iep.utm.edu, (March 28, 2012),
http://www.iep.utm.edu/leib-met/#H7; Wikipedia, s.v. ―Time,‖ last modified 27 March, 2012,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time#cite_ref-Mattey_5-1.

7
"animation," The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English, 2009, Encyclopedia.com, (March 29,
2012), http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-animation.html.

8
Gale Research Inc., "Animation," How Products Are Made, 1998, Encyclopedia.com, (March 29, 2012),
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2896700014.html.

9
Froehlich, Thomas J., "Animation," Computer Sciences, 2002, Encyclopedia.com, (March 29, 2012),
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401200017.html.

10
"game," The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English, 2009, Encyclopedia.com, (March 29, 2012),
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-game.html.

11
Chris Crawford, Chris Crawford on game design, New Riders, 2003.

12
Toy Story 1, 2 and 3, Animated Film, Directed by John Lasseter, Produced by Pixar, 1995-2010.

13
gameLab, Diner Dash, Game, Prod. Erik Zwerling, New York: PlayFirst, December 3, 2003.

14
Ubisoft Montreal, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy, Game, Ubisoft, 2003-2005.

15
Nintendo EAD, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Game, Nintendo, April 27, 2000.

16
Nintendo EAD, The Legend of Zelda:Ocarina of Time, Game, Nintendo, November 21, 1998.
12

Chapter Two: Prior Art
—The Project’s Inspiration and Direction

Zoetrope

zoetrope: optical toy converting a series of pictures into the
semblance of continuous motion.
1

Figure 1: Sample of Classic Zoetrope

A classic physical zoetrope uses the scanning of the slits that cut vertically in the
spinning cylinder’s sides to stop the pictures from simply blurring together, therefore
creating optical illusions. Modern zoetrope installations sometimes use strobe lights to
achieve the same effect.

The concept of zoetrope plays such an important role in the final version of Timension,
and could be called the foundation of all the final outcomes. Even though the zoetrope is
13

a classic animation device with a great metaphor of time that people have always enjoyed
playing with, it was not introduced or even conceived of until the second half of the
project.

Time in Different Forms

Within the field of traditional media, the concept of time is a popular topic. I hereby
present some examples of work that provided invaluable insights, knowledge and
inspiration for Timension.

The book A brief history of time, as mentioned in the first chapter, from one of the most
brilliant theoretical physicists in history, has always been an inspiring and enjoyable
reading to me, as it explores very profound questions in a way that nonscientists can also
understand. On the other hand, the short flip-book animation A brief history of pretty
much everything,
2
which is done by a high school student in three weeks with just pens
and a notebook, simply demonstrated how complicated thoughts about our world can be
translated to a three minutes enjoyable experience using limited time and resource.

Pixar’s masterful modern zoetrope installations
3
(Figure 2.a and 2.b) and the art
installation Phonographantasmascope
4
(Figure 2.c and 2.d) were a great influence over
Timension's final version. Both of these modern interpretations were crafted with not
14

only new techniques but also unique contexts of the themes they are advocating, either
the artistic consideration of Pixar’s creative process, or the experience as a record player.

Figure 2: Photos of Modern Zoetrope Installations
(2.a: Toy Story Zoetrope; 2.b: Toy Story Zoetrope in Motion;
2.c: Phonographantasmascope close shot; 2.c: Phonographantasmascope overall view)

The short science fiction story —All You Zombies — by Robert A. Heinlein
5
is a great
example of playing with time and chronology, full of paradoxes caused by time travel.
As the story unfolds, all the major characters are revealed to be the same person, at
different stages/times of his/her life.
d
b
c
a
15

Figure 3: —All You Zombies — timeline

Game designers are also fascinated by time. Braid
6
is considered to be one of the best
puzzle games in history, influencing a great number of designers and game players. This
game explores almost every aspect of time and incorporates it into its gameplay in new
ways. For example, it allows rewinding players’ progresses—frame by frame, instead of
reloading the game again and again from certain save points—this is not only a
functionality change, it also enables interesting mechanics, like putting in things that are
fixed in its own time flow—cannot be rewound with the character, things that slow down
time and affect objects around them, or creating a self-duplication, mimicking the real
character’s actions that just got rewound. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
7
is
one of the games that were heavily influenced by Braid. P.B. Winterbottom explored a
16

single time-based mechanic very deeply, combining with a unique setup that represents
the early 1990s silent films, illustrating how games about time—such a serious and
abstract topic, can be designed in more interesting, poetic, and humorous ways.

Loop Reccord
8
is an experimental video editing game about synchronizing a chain of
video clips in order to create a continuous movement. This game was the first game to
use pure cinematography language and video editing metaphors as gameplay, it was a fun
combination of movie and game and it explored basic concepts about time in creative
ways. Storyteller
9
is another simple but inspiring storytelling puzzle game based on the
language of comics. Its innovative gameplay about interactive writing and storytelling
creates a very unique and satisfying experience by playing with its pixelated characters,
and it forms interesting stories within only 3 or 4 time frames.

17

Chapter Two Endnotes

1
T. F. HOAD, "zoetrope," The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 1996, Encyclopedia.com,
(March 29, 2012), http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-zoetrope.html.

2
A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything, Youtube Video, 3:12, Directed by James Francis Bell, 2010,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNYZH9kuaYM.

3
Pixar, "Toy Story Zoetrope," The Museum of Modern Ar,. Pixar: 20 Years of Animation, New York,
2005.

4
Jim Lefevre, "Phonographantasmascope," Victoria and Albert Museum, Friday Late Animate, London,
2007, http://www.jimlefevre.com/?page_id=200.

5
Robert A. Heinlein, "—All You Zombies—," Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1959.

6
Jonathan Blow, Braid, Game, 2006.

7
The Odd Gentlemen, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, Game, Valve, 2010.

8
Nicolai Troshinsky, Loop Raccord, Game, Plural Games, 2010,
http://www.troshinsky.com/loopraccordeng.html.

9
Daniel Benmergui, Storyteller, Game. 2011, http://www.ludomancy.com/blog/2011/06/30/announcing-
my-new-game-storyteller/.
18

Chapter Three: Prototypes and Observations
—Constraints and Mappings

It is relatively hard for game designers to hide themselves completely in the games they
make. That is to say, game designers’ views of the real world will always be reflected,
while modified out of necessity, in the game world. As my goal is not to make a
judgment but to provide an experience that pushes people to think, one design challenge
for me is to convey minimum amount of my thoughts but give out my way of thinking.

Replayability is an important concept for the games that I make and play, and Timension
reflects my personal priority of trying to make games that are replayable. I view our
world as rules, objects, and relationships among them, which contain the possibility of
producing any scenario or fate. So Timension from the beginning was going to be
designed based on this type of view of the world, and therefore began with mapping the
mechanics of the real world. After that, twists, exaggerations, and compromises were
made depending on different design needs or limitations during the whole process.

As mentioned in Chapter One, there are two distinct viewpoints on time. While both
views were involved and explored during the process of the whole project, most of the
prototypes were focused on using time as an intellectual concept that was used to
sequence and compare events. Accordingly, events are treated as absolute, while time is
heavily emphasized by its relativistic nature.
19

Based on the fact that Timension is not a scientific project, but a number of experiments
inside the interactive media world, there was no pre-made hypothesis, nor universal-
accepted methodologies, nor well-balanced models involved. However, it’s also not a
single art piece generated from a flash of lightning, or expected to last forever. The core
value relies on exploring different directions, making demos and testing with different
people, and therefore the final outcome of the project is not a summary of the entire
process, but a curated representation that boldly embraced the goal of Timension.

The entire project can be divided in two phases, which were marked by the introduction
of the zoetrope metaphor to the project. Both phases were primarily targeted at the
general public, and then gradually focused on ―Explorers‖
*
and non-gamer-specific
animation lovers. Early stage demos were made in different formats on different
platforms, such as paper prototype, video mapping, Flash demo on computers or Unity
demo for iOS devices, while later prototypes were specifically designed for iPad, using
the touch screen. The first half of the process was testing ideas using a series of various
prototypes that trying to explore different aspects of time, while the second part of the
project was focusing on finalizing one prototype based on a few specific design questions.

*
―Explorers‖: players who prefer discovering, creating , and learning at their own pace, paying close
attention to detail and solving puzzles, enriching themselves in any back story or lore they can find. They
are close to the ―Explorers‖ category in Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology,
†
which classifies players of
multiplayer online games into four categories—Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, and Killers. A player’s
result is represented in the ―Bartle Quotient‖. The test can be taken from gamerDNA’s website:
http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology.

†
Richard Bartle, "Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit muds," Journal of MUD Research,
1996, http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm#1.

20

Phase I — small various prototypes

In the early phase before the zoetrope idea was introduced, the whole theme of the project
was about time—its definition, its essence, its interval, and its fragments. This theme
produced various prototypes, from straightforward time management to abstract decision
making. Most of the designs did not even go beyond the paper prototyping process, and
none of them really represented the core idea in a way that is meaningful both
philosophically and mechanically, let alone psychologically. Three examples are given
below as they are worth discussing either because of problems that were found through
playtesting, or because of how they relate to the final version of the project.

Clock vs. Timeline —Prototype Clock
a. Prototype Description
A clock as a traditional way of representing a steady movement of time has never been
out of date. A timeline, contrary to the periodical rotation that forces people to focus on
the present and worry about the future, silently sits in the background, using memorable
and intermediate moments to decorate its plain but straightforward coordinate line.

The very first prototype hereby dubbed "Clock", made using Flash, was an attempt to
combine those two methods to represent their observation about time. A twist was added
to emphasize the ever-changing nature of how time depends on the perspective of
observation.
21

d
b
c
a

Figure 4: Clock Screenshot
(4.a, 4.b: dash board section; 4.c, 4.d: cartridge section)

In the dash board section of Clock (Figure 4.a and 4.b), every object is traveling on its
periodical route represented by a clock, which players can control using keyboard to
manipulate their speed, size or even make them jump from moment to moment. What
makes it different is that the clocks are actually looping timelines. Rather than relying on
the sun, the moon or caesium, however, they are initially marked by ordinary events
happening to the objects, and can be influenced later by the players. Clock tries to mimic
the feeling that without a universal way of comparing each other’s time, people’s lives
are counted and recorded by things that happen to them that they can remember, because
they are either special or frequent. People’s lives are not measured by the movement of
those huge planets or small atoms that people probably only know by their names, nor are
they artificially determined by some scientists people never know even by name.
22

In dash board part of the game, objects’ timelines intersect or even overlap at some points
or areas. In the prototype it is represented by some objects jumping out of its own clock
and traveling along other objects’ routes for a while. While it is hard to tell while playing
what the key events that connect person A and person B on their respective timelines,
usually there is an object/location/person C that acts as the key connection for them,
though sometimes C will not be recognized or remembered even if it is very important. It
is odd that every single thing happens, and people often tend to imagine what if
something was slightly changed. Therefore, this part of the prototype also tried to give a
higher-level perspective, and let the players play with those connections. More
importantly, allowing the players to explore the potentials and see the consequences of a
sequence of small changes.

Every clock represents a different object and each clock is also a door through which the
players can enter the other part of the game, yet from different points of view. In
cartridge part (Figure 4.c and 4.d), objects are moving in the same physical space, but in
different plots, and some plots are connected by the objects traveling through them.
Players follow one object through its route, as if they are watching a short movie, and
they see things happen to the object they are following, especially after changes get made
by the players.

23

b. Lessons Learned
Switching breaks the connection
As mentioned before, Clock is trying to combine clocks and timelines together to twist
the common ways people use to represent time. However, since these two means were
not mixed together, but were simply mapped to two sections and put side-by-side for
comparison, the prototype was torn into two parts, and the inner connections between the
two sections could only be interpreted by players’ imaginations.
Time becomes a gimmick
Although Clock used many concepts about time, the real gameplay seemed to have
nothing to do with time when players were playing the game. Its gameplay built on
exploration and stories, but time was just floating on the surface like a gimmick. This
problem actually appeared in several later prototypes as well.
Scripted scenarios vs. unlimited possibilities
It would be ideal if every single thing in Clock was an object that had its own clock,
including relatively stable things like grass, buildings, or the sun, etc. However, it was
hard to implement in the real prototype, for various reasons. For some, their time scales
were way too big compared with other objects or even themselves. For example, a bus
stop could be in one block for 3 years then moved somewhere else for 2 days. Doing this
would have made the system dynamic and interesting, but this could not be done with the
available resources. Also, if everything around the bus stop needed a separate clock, the
system would be too big and not necessarily fun.

24

Therefore, some of the elements were abstracted and faded into the environment (the
background of the game), which inevitably decreased the potentialities of the system.
However, even with a limited number of objects, there were still infinite events that could
happen, and while a lot of content could be procedurally generated, the consequences of
different sequences still needed to be decided and pre-scripted artificially for the game to
function. This not only was the opposite direction of the initial concept of unlimited
possibilities, but it could easily turn the fun of exploration into exhausting match-making.

Unfortunately, without good solutions or alternative ways of resolving the pre-scripting
problem, the final version of Timension was still developed using scripted scenarios, and
it probably will remain as one of the most difficult problems for a while, even for the
entire game industry to solve.
Decisions are hard to make
Designing a game to encourage players to explore, and designing a game to encourage
players to make meaningful decisions are quite different tasks, and sometimes
contradictory.

Decisions are hard to make because there are consequences. Decisions are hard to make
because the consequences may have immediate, huge impacts. Clock didn’t want to put a
huge burden on players by setting a few critical moments and ask players to react, which
may kill the fun. However, when the consequences are too trivial or even identical,

25

people will not care about making a meaningful decision and lose interest, which turns
puzzle games into match-making, just like in Clock.

Decisions are hard to make because the consequences may take a long time for people to
see. In Clock, the initial idea was to give the players indirect/limited control of each
object, so players could not decide what happens; they could only make ―changes‖,
which may influence existing objects and events, or potentially trigger new things (either
the ones they were expecting or not). However, players had to make a lot of small
decisions, and there was not enough feedback for each decision, and it got boring when
the consequences were not clear until after a certain duration, especially when players
had to sit there and watch the same animation again and again, with nothing new
happening.

Timension goals included avoiding making predetermined judgments about what was
meaningfull, in order to let the players make their own decisions and judgments. Because
of this, it struggled with offering neutral options instead of controversial ones. However,
it seemed that giving playes a predetermined judgement and letting them love or hate it
worked better.

26

Prototype Astronauts and Bus
a. Prototype Description
Since the Clock didn’t work well and felt split with too much information, the next few
versions tried to focus on utilizing one overall above-view and really digging into one
mechanic at a time.

Figure 5: Astronauts Screenshot

Astronauts is a simple Flash prototype, in which players control two special squares
representing two characters simultaneously by using the keyboard, while other squares
are obstacles that run around automatically.

27

This prototype is designed to test the idea of indirect control and timing with a very
abstracted view of how two people in the world meet each other. The blue and red
squares move perpendicularly to each other at different speeds and cross the screen
periodically, similar to the view of people traveling in their own time flows and sharing
some similar segments. People often go through their paths again and again until they
knock into someone else and disappear—having a new life, or finally meeting each
other—which requires good timing, a lot of effort, and some luck.

Figure 6: Bus Screenshot

28

Bus is another simple prototype developed in Unity for iOS devices, in which players
control different objects by circling around corresponding clocks on the top of the touch
screen using their fingers, and the objects’ movements along their routes are mapped
directly to the dots’ orbit around the clocks using bijection.

Bus is designed to test out a simple story about coincidence. The optimized scenario of it
is about a girl and a boy who meet on a bus, which is used repetitively with small tweaks
in a lot of later versions, mainly because it is easily recognizable with a delightful
romantic nature. Bus tries to combine the two parts of Clock into one screen and uses top-
down view to give a clear map of objects’ positions and immediate feedback regarding
players’ performances.
b. Lessons Learned
In both versions, players can change the movement of different objects separately,
including changing speeds, directions or positions. However, the control scheme did not
map the on-screen objects well, because Astronauts used keys on the keyboard, and Bus
separated the control section of the screen from the objects’ moving area, so the players
still felt disconnected from the objects.

More importantly, in Astronauts, even though the physics/mechanics part worked well
and was also challenging, without real characters, simple animations or elaborative
narrative, it was difficult for people to understand the metaphor behind it and they did not
29

feel engaged. It was more like an action game with moving ―astronauts‖. On the contrary,
the setup of Bus was easily accepted, but was not really fun to play with after the first run.
30

Demo Kiween
a. Prototype Description
Kiween is a simple video demo mapping out a level of a game idea that tries to play with
time and animations. It utilizes the user interface of Flash, which might result in horrible
user experience if not used carefully, deliberately targeting the group of players who are
familiar with the concept of "timeline", "keyframe", or ―animations‖, and serves as an
inside joke for Flash users, because it’s similar to the Flash game Animator vs. Animation.

Figure 7: Kiween Screenshot

Kiween was also based on the idea of having multiple solutions for puzzles in the game.
For example, to avoid a falling rock, players could choose to wait and jump across it, or
to run fast enough under it. Also, to cross a river, players could use a swimming
animation directly, or an attacking animation on a tree to make a bridge (if the tree object
31

was found), or use the sun and cloud to generate a rainbow bridge (if the raining
animation was unlocked).

Some people may argue about the differences between strategy game and puzzle game, or
the differences between games and other play activities. More specifically, designers
have different beliefs about ―have a right answer‖ for a puzzle or level. Timension was
experimenting with how not to give the players a fish, nor teach the players to fish, but
more likely to reveal a river full of fish, and let the players to find out what they want to
do with it. Unfortunately, Kiween didn’t manage to fully achieve the goal at the end.
b. Lessons Learned
Despite the fact that Kiween was just a video demonstrating a design idea, and didn't end
up turning into a playable prototype, it already incorporated a lot of key concepts that
appeared in the final application: the process of tweening keyframes, sequences of
animations, time-dependent changes, exploration, and consequence. What it still lacked
was an alternate GUI that could be a general but interesting metaphor of time, and it was
before the appearance of the alternate metaphor which prompted the second phase of the
project.
32

Phase II — prototype Zoetrope series with its small sub-versions

While I was hunting for a better way to set up a metaphor for Timension, a zoetrope
randomly appeared and immediately caught up my eyes. Because it perfectly met all of
the expectations and criteria of the project I had at that time, philosophically and
mechanically. It embraced the concept so well that no more dramatic changes in vision
were necessary afterwards, and the project entered a new phase and started to shape itself
a little bit better.
Version OldMovie
a. Prototype Description
OldMovie (Figure 8) is an early stage sandbox version of Zoetrope developed in Unity
and designed specifically for iPad. Players interact with digital zoetropes through the
touch screen by using different gestures, most of which are imitations of the natural
gestures people use to play with physical zoetropes.

33

Figure 8: OldMovie Screenshot

Figure 9: OldMovie Instruction Screen

34

OldMovie is designed for testing the new control scheme and the interactive animation
idea, while still using the simple story of a girl and a boy. Two zoetropes (representing
the two characters) are placed in the middle of the screen, with an old style projection
screen behind them. Players swipe to speed up the rotation of a selected zoetrope, or hold
to stop it. Players can also rotate a zoetrope slowly but accurately by dragging left or
right slowly. Two icons, each with a dot circling around them (indicating the
corresponding rotation speed of each zoetrope) are located at the bottom of the screen,
and players can tap them to switch control between the two characters’ zoetropes.

The basic physical principle of the ―magic‖ moments in Zoetrope series of prototypes, in
other words, the optical illusions, are generated as a result of the special combinations of
three things: 1) the frame rate of the digital device that Zoetrope is running on, 2) the
animation and 3) the rotation speed of the zoetropes. When they are matched perfectly
together, the special visual illusions function as the ―magic‖ moments, when the
animations look like they are staying in one position and playing smoothly, while the
zoeptropes are still rotating at a high speed.

Each zoetrope contains a certain amount of frames that form a looping animation of each
character. Just like discussed above, the animation itself changes according to the
rotation speed of the zoetrope discretely, but the visual effect of the same animation also
changes continuously. This is due to the combination of the zoetrope’s rotation speed,
35

the number of frames of each loop, and the frame rate of the device. So, a steady clear
animation of each character will only appear when the zoetrope rotates at certain speeds.

The idea is to let the players experiment with the control, just like playing with real
zoetropes, and then explore and discover the characters’ interactive animations, while
trying to find some connection between them. If the players can make the two characters
steady while performing certain actions, a short movie will be projected on the screen at
the back indicating that something special has happened. This may result in unlocking
new objects or animations in future versions.

b. Lessons Learned
Disconnection between different sections on the screen
Although players could directly control the objects on the screen in OldMovie, and the
bottom section was put there only for switching control (and potentially giving hints so
some players could get a sense of how fast the zoetropes were turning), some players still
felt there was a huge gap between the two sections, especially for those who play games
very often.

It is worth pointing out that different types of people approached OldMovie quite
differently, and different types of players approached OldMovie quite differently as well.
So after OldMovie, later versions of Zoetrope were all designed for iPad and targeted
36

people who don’t usually play games, but love animations and abstract but strong visual
style. In general, it targeted ―Explorers‖ in games.
No good tutorial to guide players through
Even though the basic control and gameplay was implemented during the first round of
tests, which was not in a very restricted environment, there was neither a good tutorial
nor a well-designed game progression, other than an image appearing shortly during
loading. After locking down the direction and implementing the new controls, an
informal playtest was hold to gather feedback towards the new form and metaphor from
gamers, animators, and people don’t usually play games, while former prototypes were
mainly tested with game designers or people I met occasionally. 22 players tested under
observation and were asked questions about how they felt about it (was it fun, did they
like it what did they like/dislike, etc.) during their play. It turned out, only one player was
able to proceed without any assistance, and while around half of the players were able to
play with the sandbox after simple verbal explanation, there was still 3 players who could
not understand the control or the gameplay, even after they were specifically taught or
demonstrated in person.

Considering that it was not using traditional game control schemes or common gameplay,
some problems could probably be easily fixed by creating a good tutorial session at the
beginning of the game. However, the poorly-designed GUI would need to be replaced
with clean and understandable graphics and even some in-game help, to make other
versions of Zoetrope more playable for its targeted audiences.
37

Not enough significant consequences
There was only one event that could be triggered in OldMovie which functioned as an
alternate ending for the sandbox, and it was incredibly hard to find without help. Most
players were desperate to find something ―magic‖, which could not be achieved by the
basic level of interaction or exploration in OldMovie.

Casual game vs. interactive toy
Although most of the players showed positive responses towards OldMovie, only about
half said they really liked the concept or style of the prototype, 3/4 of which were not
typical gamers. It seemed apparent who would be the potential audiences of the final
product, considering that more than half of the total players were typical gamers. The
interesting fact was that a lot of the players who specifically stated they really liked the
prototype were the ones having problem with the controls, whereas people that easily
learned the basis of OldMovie tended to focus more on the GUI or usability aspect of the
game.

As some players pointed out, it fell into the category of interactive toy rather than casual
game, and while it was interesting to play with, the lack of objectives and motivations
stopped the players from moving forward.

38

Version Relativity
a. Changes and Improvement
Relativity is the latest version of Zoetrope developed a few iterations after OldMovie, and
still uses the iPad as its exclusive platform. After struggling with the idea of turning it
into a typical game for months, it is finally labeled as an interactive toy that contains
game elements, and tries to play with the idea of time, based on a metaphor borrowed
from a classic animation device. The target audiences are people don’t usually play
games but love animations or abstract but strong visual styles, or typical ―Explorers‖ in
games.

Figure 10: Relativity Screenshot
39

Figure 11: Relativity Screenshot II

Besides a new visual style, two significant improvements were made, compared with
OldMovie: one is the new animation matrices behind the scene that work for multiple
objects; the other one is adding multi-touch as a new way of interacting with the toy
beyond the traditional gestures of playing with a physical zoetrope.

The new animation matrices make a huge difference, not only because they offer
complex connections for multiple objects, but also because that they are based on the
relative speed between objects and their points of view, rather than the absolute speed of
a single object. That is to say, a sequence of changes can have real second level
distinctive consequences depending on the order of changes, and the viewpoint of
observing the changes, which makes the system dynamics increase exponentially.
40

Adding multi-touch also doubles the fun of interactions in Relativity. New functions, like
temporarily adjusting frames’ positions, plucking different objects together to form a plot,
and triggering new events, can be implemented by using two finger multi-touches.

When it comes to the narrative part, Relativity also utilizes a new setup to provide a
unique space for players to explore. There are five stages with different small themes,
ranging from primitive geometries, to colors, sounds, and people. While functioning
based on the same fundamental mechanics, each stage has its own special contents for
players to explore. Players will be able to capture those interesting moments and form a
photo gallery which is a collection of their own experience.

A few design questions stood out through different experiments. Usability was one of the
biggest problems from the beginning, and existed in almost every prototype, but was not
addressed ―properly‖. At first, it was thought to be a result of the poorly designed user
interface and having no good tutorial, but after it continuously appeared in almost every
prototype, it turns out that there were some design beliefs embedded into the project that
stopped the problem from being solved in certain ways. After carefully thinking about it,
there was still no tutorial, nor help added in the final version. Almost all of the effort was
simply made to improve the control, and make the ―toy‖ more playable, rather than
understandable. I am not really interested in the method that a lot of games used to guide
and reward players step by step, or building up addiction utilizing knowledge of human
41

behaviors. It is a toy that I hoped would excite people who like to spend some time to
find an answer, not because it is easy to understand, but because of its subtleties and
accompanying surprises.

b. Future Directions
User generated content vs. huge database
The way the in-game dynamics work now is basically by relying on the size of the
animation matrices, or in other words, the size of its database. This is similar to many
successful games that have received large amounts of compliments for being creative by
having a gigantic database, and it works pretty well at generating interesting contents
based on certain understandable rules. However, using pre-made content still sets a
boundary around possibilities, even though it only occurs occasionally.

On the other hand, rather than creating events to form the matrices, the next goal for
Zoetrope is to use criteria instead of objectives to give players more freedom of
exploration and creation, and bring the user-generated contents through levels and
accumulate them in a meaningful way to make every short run through the stages become
a relatively different experience.

iOS game Draw Something
*
came out at a great time and gives a very good example of
using user-generated contents and asymmetric information between players to create

*
Omgpop, Draw Something, Game, 2012.
42

interesting gameplay. It is not a rare way of play in classic games, but modern technology
breaks the physical and time constraints that old games usually have. It is also a
demonstration of how games can be designed that require only minimum learning, while
producing common fun that most people can enjoy, Even though it still requires some
basic setups (like draw and scrabble functions, and dictionary database), as well as some
skills to play (like speaking English), it provides an interesting perspective which could
lead to a better design of Timension.
Colors and sound are not working ideally
Due to the limited time and the lack of practical color theory knowledge, the stage of
color does not working ideally on screen. Also, the sound stage works to some extent
(such as playing with rhythms), but could be better expressed by playing with 3D sounds
and their Doppler effects.
A meaningful ending has not been found
Some people feel the current progression of Relativity stops at a certain point without
giving them a meaningful ending. It would be ideal if some special event could act as a
climax for those people, for which they can have a few potential resolutions. Or maybe
have an ambiguous stop point that subject to multiple interpretations.
43

Chapter Four: Conclusions
Time accompanies everyone with its invisible, untouchable, and relativistic nature, and it
cannot be easily captured or described, wholly or partially. The attempt to shape it
usually falls apart because of a lack of content, and the experiment of extracting or
purifying it normally fails hopelessly no matter how many times one tries, as it is
imposed on human beings by their experience of changes. Perhaps that means that it is
impossible, and probably meaningless, to try to make a game simply about time itself.

On the other hand, as people’s experiences are usually subjective, and even though it is
relatively easy to incorporate some psychological aspects of time into the narrative part
of a game, any usage of time other than an ordinary clock is absurdly hard to embed into
the gameplay, which makes time become a gimmick for the experimentations.

As has been discussed quite a few times above, the final version of Timension is just a
relatively good result out of a series of experiments I made during a year, an interactive
toy about time that uses a classic metaphor to bring animations and games together. Due
to the limited time, resources, and the scope of the project, flaws still inevitably exist and
it is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete final version of
Zoetrope, or even a subsequent game, can be released.

A lot of designers have tried extremely hard, through focusing on different aspects, to use
games as a way of deciphering and illuminating the exploration of the secrets about time
44

and the world. Timension, initiated as a puzzle game, was expected to convey some idea
and experience with meaningful storytelling. It eventually found its own way out
spontaneously and insuppressibly as Zoetrope. It may not be a great answer, but it is a
rather interesting answer that should not be too trivial to present as a special point of an
endless journey. The whole process probably also marks itself as a good demonstration of
what makes the field of interactive media so dynamic and fascinating.

Although it is not a typical game, as a project trying to explore the concepts and
mechanics of time, Timension hopes to have at least a small, not deeply but meaningful,
contribution to the field of interactive media, and in the meantime could maybe accelerate
the process of blending the boundary between animations and games.
45

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Asset Metadata

Creator Dai, Yun (author)

Core Title Timension

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 05/09/2012

Defense Date 03/26/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag animation,interactive toy,iPad,OAI-PMH Harvest,Time,timension,virtual toy,zoetrope

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Swain, Chris (committee chair), Bars, Itzhak (committee member), Diamante, Vincent (committee member), Gotsis, Marientina (committee member)

Creator Email dycloudy@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-37622

Unique identifier UC11289154

Identifier usctheses-c3-37622 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-DaiYun-832.pdf

Dmrecord 37622

Document Type Thesis

Rights Dai, Yun

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA