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Our First Kiss: exploring queerness through spectacle

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Our First Kiss: exploring queerness through spectacle

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Content OUR FIRST KISS:
EXPLORING QUEERNESS THROUGH SPECTACLE
By
Aubrey Isaacman
A Thesis Presented to:
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 2021
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my advisors: Martzi Campos, Bo Ruberg, Margaret Mosser, and
Doug Staples. Thank you for everything you’ve taught me. You’ve given me skills I’ll take
forward into my career and have helped me bring my thesis to life. I am forever grateful!
I’d also like to thank Marientina Gotsis and Brian Olson. Although you weren’t my official
advisors for this project, you’ve been invaluable assets. You both have given me amazing
insight into the ways of the arts and humanities, and shown me how I can keep true to the vision
and purpose of this project. Additionally, I want to thank my professors from my undergraduate
institution UC Santa Cruz and my professors here at USC. You’ve all been deeply significant
parts of my education, my career, and my life. I can’t imagine where I would be without all of
you!
I’d also like to give a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the team: Kaitlin
Bonfiglio (KB), Lex Yu, Cloud Tian, Yuwei Lin, Laura Meng, Alex Cap, Morgan Baker, and Trever
Berryman. This game wouldn’t be possible without all of you and I’m so proud I get to call each
of you my teammates and my friends.
Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has supported me throughout this process. I
couldn’t have done this without my friends and family having my back along the way!
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Artist Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Design Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Experience Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Prior Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Historical Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Team Breakdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Project Trajectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
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List of Figures
Figure 1. Screenshot of “Our First Kiss” start screen ....................................................................1
Figure 2. Robert Yang’s “Ruck Me” installation game ................................................................. 4
Figure 3. Kissenger device ............................................................................................................ 5
Figure 4. Yossi Milo Gallery Intimacy Installation ....................................................................... 5
Figure 5. “Darling Devined” by Diedrick Brackens ...................................................................... 6
Figure 6. Screenshot of Sean Wejebe’s “The Longest Couch” ......................................................7
Figure 7. Mock-up image of Mystery Science Theater 3000 .......................................................,. 8
Figure 8. Tunnel of Love Dark Ride .............................................................................................. 8
Figure 9. Picture of a Kiss Cam from a sporting event .................................................................. 9
Figure 10. Entrance to Studs, adult movie theater in Santa Monica ............................................ 10
Figure 11. Screenshot of team Trello board ................................................................................. 12
Figure 12. Screenshot of team burndown chart ........................................................................... 13
Figure 13. Team member breakdown ......................................................................................... 14
Figure 14. Screenshot of team members ..................................................................................... 15
Figure 15. Screenshot of main gameplay scene .......................................................................... 16
Figure 16. Screenshot of interactive emojis available ................................................................ 17
Figure 17. Force sensor controlling LED brightness with Arduino ........................................... 18
Figure 18. Screenshot of team Tik Tok ....................................................................................... 19
Figure 19. Screenshot of physical obstacle in game ................................................................... 20
Figure 20. Mask used for base of controllers .............................................................................. 22
Figure 21. Controller mock-up ................................................................................................... 23
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Figure 22. Controller on mask ................................................................................................... 24
Figure 23. Me wearing the controller ......................................................................................... 24
Figure 24. Two players kissing with controllers ......................................................................... 25
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Abstract
Our First Kiss is a queer, alternative controller festival game in which two people on a
date at the movies must time their first kiss while navigating obstacles and scrutiny from other
audience members. Our First Kiss is my interactive thesis project for USC’s 2021 MFA class; it
is about exploring dates as a public spectacle, and reclaiming the movies as a queer safe place.
This is the first year the thesis course has been entirely online via Zoom because of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout this paper, I will discuss my interactive project and its
challenges, including those specific to COVID-19.
I created Our First Kiss primarily for 18-24 year old queer folks and I often thought of
both singles and couples. I wanted this game to be something that anyone could see at a
festival and play with their partner, or even play with a stranger if they are feeling particularly
brave. My secondary audience is 45-54 year old queer folks who want to take this game as an
opportunity to show public affection with their partners. Some of the inspiration for this game
comes from the 1950s-1990s era of movies where being outwardly queer in public was frowned
upon. Although the queer community still faces issues like this today, I hope my game can help
an older demographic take back this time period and safely go to the movies with their partner.
My primary thesis for creating this game was “how can kissing be used as a game
mechanic?” I wanted to explore how players would react when their main form of interaction
was choosing when to kiss and whether or not they wanted to. The other part of my thesis that I
want to explore is “how can we put privacy on spectacle?” In this paper, I will show how I
answered both of these questions by creating Our First Kiss.
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Introduction
Artist Statement
Our First Kiss is a queer, alternative controller festival game in which two players are on
a date at the movies. They must wordlessly communicate and read each other’s body language
in order to time their first kiss while under the gaze and scrutiny of the rest of the audience. This
installation explores the idea of claiming public spaces as queer; do you risk outing yourself in
public in order to show your partner affection? Or do you stay in the closet?
My goal with this experience is to provide a nostalgic feeling of “the good ol’ days” like
the 1950s to queer folks in a safe way that allows them to reclaim that time period and physical
space for themselves. I also wanted explore how people’s behavior on dates might change
when they’re being spectated, and new possibilities for queer gameplay through use of
installation and alternative controllers.
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While creating this experience, our team has designed this specifically for queer people.
Our First Kiss validates the queer dating struggle and provides hope for a safer future for queers
and allies alike. Our First Kiss is designed to give the “couple” a small layer of privacy within the
experience so even though they’re still being watched by the audience, they can discover
feeling comfortable with each other. Through this game, I wanted to emphasize that loving
support can help overcome individual insecurities so people can truly appreciate time with their
partners.
Motivation
I have a love for intimacy in interactive media and knew from the beginning that I wanted
to take the opportunity to explore this space with my thesis. I love exploring different types of
games to explore these themes; I’ve used everything from card games to VR to create intimate
gameplay. However, in conversations with IGDA founder, Ernest Adams, we’ve discussed how
alternative controllers would best serve intimate play. He told me “a keyboard is just not sexy”,
which inspired one of my biggest goals for this project: use alternative controllers and physicality
to create a unique experience. More specific to intimacy, I started thinking about how kissing
could be used as a game mechanic and how it would feel the most natural in a game.
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Overview
Design Goals
Since this is my last year at USC, I wanted to use my thesis to take advantage of all the
things I wanted to learn that I hadn’t gotten to yet. This is why my project is mainly physical! I
wanted to learn how to integrate Arduino into Unity, how to include an alternative controller into
the production cycle, how to design the controllers for accessibility, and how to fabricate the
controllers in a way that they won’t break at festivals. Although I took this as a learning
opportunity, I made sure everything I wanted to explore was realistic. For example, even though
I wanted to learn how to fabricate high quality controllers, I do have experience making
prototypes prior to this so this goal, as well as my other ones, were reasonably within reach. I
also wanted to create a game that left the players feeling like they bonded because of the
obstacles they had to overcome together. In short, this game is as much for me as it is for the
people who play it.
Experience Goals
I wanted to bring up feelings of awkwardness, embarrassment, and discomfort towards
the beginning of the game. These are feelings that many people experience on first dates, so I
wanted to tease this and specifically bring up the queer portions of it. The discomfort doesn’t
just come from opening up to someone new; it comes from opening up to the entire room about
your queer identity when all you want to do is show affect to your partner. Public displays of
affection (PDA) for queer couples is a more weighted decision than it is for straight or
straight-presenting couples. By making this date a playable experience that others can spectate,
I hope Our First Kiss can be a way for allies to get a better picture of what queer folks go
through just to be on a date together in public. I designed this game so that the queer “couple”
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playing can fully experience the awkwardness and potential stress, and come out of it with a
newfound bond through soliderity, comfort, and silliness.
Inspiration
Prior Art
Ruck Me by Robert Yang
Ruck Me is a gay Australian football
installation game created by Robert
Yang and Louis Roots. The player
must press a button on the ceiling in
order to catch the ball. However, the
only way to reach it is by holding up
the alternative controller: an inflatable
sex doll… who is pantsless. Players would have to massage the doll’s “sore muscles” by
smashing the buttons underneath the doll’s clothes. I love the use of the body as a controller in
this game and that’s something I aim to replicate in Our First Kiss. Something Robert brings up
in his blog post about this game is that many people who are too short had a hard time playing
because they couldn’t reach the button on the ceiling, even with the sex doll. This made him
think about how alternative controllers often have accessibility issues. This is something I am
taking seriously with my thesis because I would like to give as many people the opportunity to
play this game as possible.
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Kiss Messenger: A Lovotics Application
Kiss Messenger, also known as Kissenger, is essentially a pair of robots that allows two
partners to kiss over long distances. It uses highly sensitive pressure sensors and mimics the
pressure of one partner into the
other partner’s device. It
allegedly feels very personal
and intimate, especially with its
included ability to video chat
with your partner while you’re
kissing. If you watch the videos
on the Lovotics website, you’ll
see the users are walking around in public carrying these weird looking devices and kissing
them. Surprisingly, I did not know about this work until after I had started developing my thesis,
but it definitely speaks to the themes I’m exploring. Does being in public affect the way people
interact with the Kissenger device? In other words, what would their behavior look like if they
were using Kissenger in private, in the comfort of their own homes?
Yossi Milo Gallery: Intimacy installation (June 28-August 24, 2018)
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The Intimacy installation at the Yossi Milo Gallery was curated by Stephen Truax. The
works in this exhibition present how intimacy has been portrayed through the past 40 years, with
a particular emphasis on the 1980s and 1990s. Each of the works are by different artists who
focus on different, complex queer issues of their times. I love that this exhibition is queer
focused and includes many different queer artists. I know that sounds like it should be obvious
but I appreciate the representation! And I like Truax chose a diverse group of queers because
intersectional identity is another important theme that comes out of these works and this
exhibition as a whole. This installation is a great example of how art, queerness, and intimacy
has changed throughout the decades. Even though I’m focusing specifically on the 1950s, this
exhibition shows how we can focus on these societal changes to queer identity through art, and
will definitely help me shape my thesis with this frame in mind.
“Darling Devined” by Diedrick Brackens
Diedrick Brackens is a black queer artist based in
Los Angeles. In many of his works, including
“Darling Devined”, he uses the body as a way of
expressing identity, especially queerness. He
particularly likes to focus on portraying his own
emerges into the art world as black and as queer.
Similar to the Intimacy installation, a common
theme in Brackens’ work is intersectionality. While
the other two works I’ve included here are clearly sexual in nature, I find Brackens’ work
interesting because he specifically avoids sexuality. As he says in this interview, he wants to
explore what queer identity looks like when you’re not thinking about sex but still focusing on the
pleasurable. The other thing I particularly enjoy about his work is that with his woven pieces, he
6
uses a combination of African and southern American weaving techniques. This is a shout out
to his background since he’s from the South. I love this in particular because not only does his
art comment on intersectionality, but he includes this in the creation of his work. I wanted to
include this as one of my prior art pieces because I feel that it’s important to remember the
background of my piece (1950s America) and how I can portray queerness with it. I thought it
would be really important to remember that queerness does not automatically mean that I have
to think of my game or the mechanics from a sexual point of view; just because I’m having my
players “kiss” doesn’t mean it is necessarily a sexual moment for them.
The Longest Couch by Sean Wejebe
The Longest Couch is a two player couch co-op game in
which the two players are trying to get their avatars to
skootch next to each other on the world’s longest couch.
In order to move your character, you have to press the
keyboard buttons on your side of the screen. I was
unfortunately only able to play along but according to
folks who have played with another person, the game
gets harder by adding more buttons and increasing the
variety of buttons you need to press in order to move. For example, if you’re on the left side of
the keyboard, the game might prompt you to press on some keys on both the left and the right
side of the keyboard. When this happens, players’ fingers get tangled with each other! This is an
excellent touch that adds more intimacy between the players and adds an awkwardness that I’m
hoping to find with my own game.
Mystery Science Theater
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Surprisingly, I did not know anything about Mystery Science Theater (MST) other than the
simple fact that it existed before I started designing this experience. However, when I showed
my idea to some of the faculty here at USC Games, they immediately reacted with statements
like “oh, so it’s like Mystery Science
Theater”. After watching clips from
the original, I immediately
understood why they thought of it!
The aesthetic of it completely
matches what I wanted to design:
having chairs and characters
silhouetted on top of a movie screen.
I love that the characters verbally commentated on the films they were watching. However, this
is the biggest difference between MST and Our First Kiss: my game has no dialogue
whatsoever, so the significance of the experience is read within the details and audience
interactions instead of through direct verbal
expression.
Historical Inspiration
Tunnel of Love Dark Rides
Also known as “old mill” rides, passengers
would float along an artificial river in a two-seater boat.
There were two major themes for this kind of ride: a
tunnel of love for a romantic mood, or a horror theme
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where couples would cling to each other out of fear. The first old mill ride opened in 1895, a time
where even holding hands with your date in public was considered inappropriate. However, the
darkness of the tunnels provided a somewhat private environment for couples to have some
sort of physical contact with each other. As stigma around unmarried couples touching faded
away and other opportunities opened up for couples to be physical in public, like movie theaters,
these rides were either reframed as children’s rides or were torn down completely.
Kiss Cam, sporting events
The Kiss Cam originated in California in
the 1980s. They started as a simple way to
pass any downtime at large stadium
events, typically sporting events. Kiss
Cams are intended to be a light form of
entertainment; kisses are met with
cheering and applause while a refusal is
usually met with booing. However, many queer folks have often felt overlooked and left out of
the Kiss Cam experience: if the camera does focus on them, they have seconds to decide if
they want to come out to thousands of strangers both in the arena and watching the event from
home. Many queer kiss cam couples have been subjected to homophobic retailation from other
audience members, which can feel embarrassing and uncomfortable. In more recent years,
these couples have started getting the applause of approval they deserve!
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Adult Movie Theaters
Admittedly, incorporating the game into a movie theater setting originally started as a
way to design around the awkward motions of turning away from a screen and kissing, but it
quickly became a core aspect of the game. Movie theaters became a popular date spot in the
1950s as drive-ins, where couples could get maximum privacy (McDowell). This kind of privacy
remained one of the key reasons movies thrived well beyond drive-ins.
By the mid-1960s, many people went to typical, non-drive-in, theaters for similar
reasons. This time period between the 1960s-1980s also so happened to be dubbed “The
Golden Age of Porn”. As the privacy of the theater
became more highly valued, porn theaters began
opening across the US so people could watch adult
films in the dark. By 1979, there were an estimated
800 porn theaters across the United States (Miranda).
Nina Hartley, an adult film star, says “you had to go
out of your home and risk being seen, risk being
recognized. Everyone sat very far apart” (Miranda). I
found this interesting because these kinds of theaters
were created to take advantage of the privacy movies
provided, yet people were afraid of being recognized
going to these theaters.
However, once inside the theater, people felt like they could be who they truly were
without judgement. The 1970s were very sex positive so gay porn houses became a safe space
for the LGBTQ+ (queer) community. Mike Stabile, a spokesperson for the Free Speech
Coalition, explained that “they weren’t just theater spaces… You could go in and have these
experiences and they were anonymous./Being a young gay man, it’s tremendously
nerve-racking, but there was something about the theater that is closed off from the rest of the
10
world.” (Miranda). This type of physical space was lifechanging for many in the queer
community because before this, they didn’t have a private space to be themselves that wasn’t in
their own homes. Now, they could go out and explore their sexualities with these explicit films.
Zak Smith, an adult film star also known as Zak Sabbath, says that “Going to a porn house isn’t
really about watching the movie. Watching porn with other people is always about watching the
other people watch porn. You’re never in it completely” (Miranda). Even today, there are two
remaining porn theaters that still exist in Los Angeles on opposite ends of Santa Monica
Boulevard: Studs, a modernist movie house from the 1940s, and Tiki, a liquor store turned porn
house in the 1970s. It might be surprising to learn that Los Angeles still has one porn theater, let
alone two! So how do they stay in business? While porn has become more popular to watch
through streaming services in the privacy of your own home, modern porn theaters “draw
people who may not have access to the Internet or those concerned about online privacy, and
young gay men just beginning to explore their sexuality” (Miranda). Even though movie theaters
are seen as obsolete, people still enjoy them for the social aspects and they are an extremely
important part of our technological and social history.
Unfortunately, this year is considered the worst year for movie theaters ever because of
COVID-19 (McDowell). Although COVID-19 did bring the drive-in theater back into style, the
overall attendance rate of movie theaters has dramatically declined. As a result, many
mainstream theaters have closed and many local businesses are suffering, so only time will tell
how many porn theaters will be open after the world opens back up.
After discovering how outwardly queer the history of movie theaters is, I knew that I
wanted to use my game to push and explore the boundaries of privacy at the movies. Similar to
the porn theaters and tunnel of love dark rides, I wanted to provide a complete sense of privacy
while subverting it at the same time. In Our First Kiss, I provide my players with privacy via
silhouettes so the audience cannot see who is playing. At the same time, the silhouettes
broadcast the “couple” players’ every move so they can see who is going in for the kiss, who is
11
pulling away, just like on Kiss Cams at sporting events. Although my game isn’t pornographic,
the overall queer history of porn theaters and these historical inspirations has deeply influenced
the gameplay of Our First Kiss.
Timeline
Production
One of the biggest challenges for this game is
that I was the lead designer, the lead producer, and I
was coding the game and fabricating the controllers.
I’ve had experience being the lead designer and lead
producer on other games before but with the added
tasks of coding and fabricating, I often felt
overwhelmed. Luckily, my previous experience means I
knew what tools to look for to make production a little
easier on everyone. We used Trello as our task board.
This is where people could go to see what tasks they
were assigned and if it was of low, medium, or high
priority. Each task has its own card that features a
description of the task, who is in charge of that task,
and what category it is in. For example, the tasks my lead programmer would work on were
often labeled as “Engineering” tasks. In the past, the task charts I’ve made have all been in
person: we would have a huge board with tasks written on Post-It notes, and we would
physically move them when they were in progress or completed. I was originally planning on
doing this in the thesis space with a whiteboard but 2020 had different plans. When we found
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out we would have to produce our thesis online, I scoured the internet to find a different solution.
After a while, I finally found Trello! I’d used Trello before but very sparingly so I wasn’t entirely
sure how it would work. After going through some tutorials and playing around with it, it seemed
like the best tool for the team. Even better than just using the free version of Trello, I found an
awesome Google Chrome extension called “Burndown for Trello”. As you can see on the image
to the left, this is one of our task columns on our Trello board. Underneath the title of the task on
each card, you can see these blue squares with numbers inside them. Burndown for Trello lets
us attach how many hours we estimate our task will take to each individual task. This has been
super helpful because when we move the tasks to the “Complete” column, the team tells each
other how long their task actually took. After inputting this on the Burndown for Trello site, we
get an accurate burndown chart for each of our two week sprints. You can see an example of
one of our burndown charts below.
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Team Breakdown
On the next page is a general breakdown of how our team was set up. For more information
about our teammates and their roles on this game, please visit us at
https://www.ourfirstkissgame.com/aboutus.
Role Description Team Members
Lead Designer ● Hold project vision
● Lead team meetings
● Test/create alternative controllers
Aubrey Isaacman
Accessibility
Consultant
● Consult with lead designer and art teams
● Creative problem solve how we can make our
game accessible
Morgan Baker
Production ● Assign tasks
● Update Trello/burndown chart
● Social media
Aubrey, KB
Art and UI ● Generate art assets for game/social media
● Work with accessibility consultant to create
mockups
Yuwei Lin, Laura
Meng
Sound Design ● Create soundtrack/sound effects for the game
● Implement these into game
KB, Alex Cap
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Engineering ● Implement design decisions
● Correct bugs
● Implement art assets
● Get Unity talking to Twitch/Arduino
Aubrey, Lex Yu,
Cloud Tian,
Trever Berryman
(interim
consultant)
Pictured (right to left): Aubrey Isaacman, Cloud Tian, Kaitlin Bonfiglio, Lex Yu, Yuwei Lin
Not pictured: Alex Cap, Laura Meng, Morgan Baker, Trever Berryman
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Project Trajectory
As a second year MFA student, we are required to take two thesis prep courses in our
second semester. These courses allow us to experiment to discover what our thesis might be,
and help us prepare for the pitch. Throughout these courses, everyone seemed to have a good
idea of what their project would be; some folks ended up changing their thesis since then but
they all seemed confident that they wanted to go forward with their ideas. On the other hand, I
had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do! I acknowledge that even though it seemed like
everyone knew what they wanted to do, they might have struggled in the way I did but I couldn’t
see it. However, I felt very isolated from the rest of my cohort during these courses because a
lot of them were making progress on their actual projects while I was still trying to figure out
what I wanted to do. I decided early on that I wanted Martzi Campos to be one of my thesis
advisors since she has a lot of experience designing and making alternative controller games,
and the only thing I knew for sure is that I wanted to explore this. She was incredibly helpful for
helping me narrow down my focus! Eventually, the two of us looked at kissing as a gameplay
mechanic and that was a game changer. I immediately knew I wanted to use this mechanic but I
thought about the potential awkwardness of trying to control a game while facing away from a
screen. I wanted to design around this so that it felt as natural as possible so naturally, I thought
about kissing at the movies. This felt like a very natural way to let couples kiss in a public, yet
private setting while occasionally looking toward the movie screen.
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This got me thinking about how kissing in public is a privilege. Some couples can kiss or
show other forms of PDA without a second thought. Queer couples however have more at
stake. They have to consciously make the decision to come out to the strangers around them by
showing their partner affection. Although coming out to strangers is not the reason people kiss
their partners, the decision becomes more weighted because of it. This again got me thinking
about movies and how they became a space that was safe for couples to show affection in
public without being seen. I thought this was a perfect
way to explore queerness: what happens when this
space goes from being somewhat private to being a
public spectacle? I decided I wanted to physically create
this space by making a festival game!
But then COVID-19 hit. When the remaining
month and a half of our 2020 Spring semester went
online, we were all disappointed but I certainly didn’t
expect that my entire next academic year would be
conducted online. Now, I was faced with navigating the
production of an in-person, festival experience with a
completely online format. This has been one of the
biggest game design challenges I’ve ever had to face but it got me thinking about my project
differently than I otherwise would have. The first and easiest hurdle to overcome was figuring
out how to put the audience interaction online. Since we were originally planning on letting the
audience interact through their cell phones (similar to the Jackbox Party games), we decided to
change this feature to work through the Twitch chat. The core of this experience is the
awkwardness that people can feel while they’re on a first date and trying to be physical together.
This specifically cannot translate well into an online format because it’s very dependent upon
the players reading each other’s body language and navigating awkward moments together, like
17
accidentally touching hands. Ultimately, we decided to keep the game as a primarily in person
experience. This way, people who quarantine together could play with the alternative controllers
while they stream the experience on Twitch so others can participate. This was an incredibly
difficult decision to make but it ultimately came down to this: if the two people going on a date
were not in the same room together, this game would be a completely different experience. I find
myself curious about what that experience would look like and how I would design for it, but I
decided to keep my original focus on the physicality of this game.
This decision has come with some skepticism. However, I feel that I would have received
skepticism no matter what my decision was. It feels like America as a whole is reacting to
COVID-19 by trying to go about daily life as if everything was normal. I didn’t want to encourage
people to pretend like everything was ok, so instead I decided to think forward with my project.
My hope for Our First Kiss is that it could be something people look forward to playing once the
pandemic is over. I feel that this way of thinking actually adds a lot of depth to my design,
particularly the way the lip controllers mimic masks.
Over the winter break, we were able to reach most of our milestones for Alpha! However,
we had a lot of issues actually getting the connection between the Arduino and Unity to work
properly, which prevented us from hitting the Alpha milestone itself. The alternative controllers
are a core part of this experience so we spent a lot of time trying to come up with work arounds
and other possible solutions, while thinking of
how, in the worst case scenario, we could keep
our game feel without them. I didn’t want to
give up on my alternative controllers, since
they’re one of my most important design pillars,
so I tried everything I could think of to debug
the issue: I tried the same code on multiple
Arduinos boards, I tried using different wires or
18
sensors, I had teammates build their own copies to test on their Arduino boards on their own
computers at home, I even tested the controller on my siblings’ computers. I couldn’t find the
answer through any of these methods. So instead of giving up, I decided to build it from scratch
so I could test both of my Arduino boards, my circuit, and the sensor without having them
hooked up to Unity. I created a very simple circuit: a pressure sensor controlled the brightness
of an LED based on how much pressure was applied to it. This circuit and code worked
perfectly in the Arduino IDE! After this experience, I concluded that this issue must have been
caused by the way I was originally trying to implement the system.
Another issue we ran into that delayed Alpha for us is that the gameplay still felt pretty
stale even after all of our work over winter break. COVID-19 took away the added pressure of
being in public while playing the game so we needed to come up with different obstacles to stop
the players from kissing right away. We also
wanted to add more interactivity by making
the film and the sound adaptive, so instead of
using the film “I Think I’m Gay?”, we started
reaching out to anyone and everyone to
submit their queer films or even just silly
videos of them with their partner(s). We
reached out through Tik Tok and sharing the
video we made through other forms of social
media too. We also made a version of our Tik
Tok with closed captions to make it more
accessible. This way, we could change the
type of clips that play depending on the
distance the players are from each other and depending on if they are kissing or not.
19
We were able to successfully implement our adaptive film idea in a surprisingly short
amount of time! We’ve had some more trouble implementing our adaptive audio but we’re really
happy with the music we got from our composer. He made an amazing love song and separated
it into three different layers for us, so we could control the volume of each one. This works with
the same logic as our adaptive film, so we implemented them all together. In addition to making
our film adaptive, we also included an obstacle to make the end goal of kissing more difficult. At
random points throughout the game, a stranger will come and sit in between the couple if
they’re not sitting next to each other. The players will then need to wait for the stranger to get up
before they can get closer to each other again.
20
Unfortunately, once we started coding these, we noticed another issue: our game lags
for 5 seconds about every 2 or 3 seconds it’s running. This made all of our features extremely
difficult to test because when the game would run, it looked like things were broken but we
couldn’t actually tell how it was running. For example, the audio would sound like static instead
of its beautiful self and the players wouldn’t move properly depending on the timing of pressing
the buttons and when the lag showed up! Initially, I originally thought this was specific to my
computer but unfortunately, everyone who opened it had lag issues. We also thought it could be
our original film file, I Think I’m Gay, was so large but the game continued to lag at the same
rate even after we changed this to the adaptive film style (so more clips that are only a few
seconds). I searched the internet for a solution and discovered that Unity has a Profiler tool that
will break down what is taking up processing power. Using this and getting some help from Matt
Whiting, we found out that the lag was coming from Uduino, the Unity Asset that gets our
Arduino to talk to Unity and visa versa. This was only half the battle because now, we had to
figure out how to actually fix the problem. In my prior coding experience, I’ve only had to figure
out surface level bugs so this was the first time I’ve had to handle a deeper, backend problem.
This is the biggest hurdle we’ve faced; it’s challenging but once we fix it, we will be back on
track to hit all of our deadlines for the remainder of the semester.
On a brief yet personal note, I feel it’s important to point out some of the emotional
moments I’ve had to overcome while making this game. During production, I decided to come
out and I’m really excited about it! Since I started making games with queer and intimate themes
in 2015, I’ve known that my games wouldn’t be for everyone and that there would even be
people who hated me for this content. After coming out, I received some lashback for making
this game from well-intentioned but misguided people in my support system. Creating this game
was the first time I personally encountered any sort of lashback that existed outside of the
comment sections of YouTube and Steam. I believe in this project and my team so I will not let
these responses stop me from creating this game. However, I do feel it’s important to note this
21
experience because I’m confident that I will look back on this as a turning point in our production
and in my career trajectory as a whole.
While figuring out our lag issue, we were also trying to figure out ways to playtest our
experience more properly. So far, we’ve tested player movement and our Twitch chat
integration casually amongst our friends, with the most formal playtests being with my
classmates during thesis class. Before we discovered that the lag was an issue, we planned on
spending the end of February and most of March doing playtests and polishing any issues we
found. Unfortunately, the lag makes our game completely unplayable so playtesting was no
longer an option until we fixed it. Even with this issue, it was finally time to start building the
finished versions of the lip controllers! At this point, I built and tested the circuit so it was ready
to go! I also made prototypes out of air dry clay to determine size and shape. Then, I got to do
one of my favorite things: go on a shopping spree at Jo-Ann! I made sure to buy a variety of
fabrics that matched our art style so both controllers could have a unique but matching style.
One of the things I’d been thinking about how to keep these controllers on people’s faces in a
comfortable, sanitary way, especially since this project is being developed during COVID-19. I
actually got a lot of inspiration from wearing
masks and seeing others wear them. I wore a lot
of different types of masks for just going out to
get groceries, but the one that ended up being
the best fit for this game is the mask I bought for
my woodworking class. They had a pocket for a
filter, straps that hook over the ear, and an
adjustable velcro strap in the back. This was
perfect because I wanted people to be able to
adjust the fit of their masks for maximum comfort;
and if I could find a way to mount the controllers
22
in a way that lets you take them
off the mask, then the masks
could be swapped out and
washed in between uses. Below,
you can see a mock up image of
what I wanted our masks to look
like at the end of production. As
you can see in this image, I had
two stretch goals for the
controllers: to allow players to
move their characters with their
lips and to incorporate an LED
strip border for player feedback.
Ideally, when players kiss with
their controllers, their lips would
light up! After talking to my thesis
advisors, I ultimately decided that
player movement with the
alternative controller was not a priority because other forms of movement will not break the
immersion of the game. If our production schedule continues on our current path, I plan on
adding the LED strips before the USC Games Expo in May 2021. At this point in our production
cycle, I’ve fabricated a preliminary design for our controllers! Below you can see the controller
mounted on top of the mask and what it looks like to wear it.
23
24
Conclusion
Our next and final steps for the game overall is to take the controllers to their final stage
of fabrication and polish, and to polish the digital aspects of our game. For the controllers, I plan
to clean up the edges and adjust how much padding is on the inside before finally making them
as light as possible. For the digital game, aside from the lag itself, we primarily need to swap out
temporary assets in our menus. If we’re able to finish these tasks in a timely manner, we’ll be
able to include more of our stretch goals, like adding the LED strips to the controllers and
adding more obstacles to the game. Before we knew the lag was a serious problem, we added
our stretch goal of increasing and decreasing the saturation of the screen based on the players’
movements and actions for additional feedback. Considering how quickly the team was able to
get this done, I’m confident that we’ll have a polished version of the game that we will be
incredibly proud of by the time the USC Games Expo rolls around!
25
Although Our First Kiss was intended to be an in-person experience, our team has
managed to adapt our concept to fit COVID-19 guidelines while capturing the essence of our
original in-person experience. Even with these obstacles, we’ve done a great job calling back to
the game’s origins of the queer experience. We’ve also managed to incorporate many aspects
of our artist and historical inspirations so we can explore queerness in the context of these
somewhat private yet spectated moments.
Since the best version of this game exists as an installation, I’ve already started applying
to festivals like IndieCade and GDC Alt Ctrl. If you’d like to see where our game goes in the
future and what we present at the USC Games Expo in May 2021, you can find us at
www.ourfirstkiss.com or www.lynnfactor.com/ourfirstkiss to stay updated.
26
Works Cited
“Intimacy Exhibit.” Intimacy . Yossi Milo Gallery. Accessed May 2020.
https://www.yossimilo.com/exhibitions/intimacy.
Isaacman, Aubrey L.. “Our First Kiss Submissions TikTok.” TikTok, January 31, 2021.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMe1yHkkC/.
Isaacman, Aubrey L. “Our First Kiss Submissions TikTok with Captions.” TikTok, February 1,
2021. https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeYkcvaN/.
Lovotics Kissenger. Accessed April 2020. http://kissenger.lovotics.com/.
McDowell, Erin. “The Rise and Fall of Movie Theaters - and How the Coronavirus Pandemic
Might Change Them.” Business Insider. Business Insider, May 26, 2020.
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-that-show-the-rise-and-fall-of-movie-theaters-20
20-5#if-theaters-in-the-us-follow-similar-guidelines-to-ones-abroad-the-movie-going-expe
rience-could-look-vastly-different-17.
Miranda, Carolina A. “The Last (Porn) Picture Shows: Once Dotted with Dozens of Adult
Cinemas, L.A. Now Has
Only Two.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2017.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-los-angeles-last-adult-the
aters-20170706-htmlstory.html.
“Queer Intimacy: A Conversation with Diedrick Brackens.” Art Papers, August 14, 2019.
https://www.artpapers.org/queer-intimacy-a-conversation-with-diedrick-brackens/.
Staff, Stella Ho |, and Stella Ho. “Weekender: Behind the Curtains: A Brief History of Movie
Theaters.” The Daily Californian, December 6, 2020.
https://www.dailycal.org/2020/12/05/behind-the-curtains-a-brief-history-of-movie-theaters
/.
Wejebe, Sean. “The Longest Couch by Wedgiebee.” itch.io. Accessed May 2020.
https://wedgiebee.itch.io/the-longest-couch.
Yang, Robert. “Post-Partum: ‘Ruck Me’, a Gay Aussie Football TV Game about Men Marking
Men.” Radiator Blog: Post-partum: "Ruck Me", a gay Aussie football TV game about men
marking men, September 24, 2018.
https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2018/09/post-partum-ruck-me-gay-aussie-football.ht
ml.
27

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Asset Metadata

Creator Isaacman, Aubrey Lynn (author)

Core Title Our First Kiss: exploring queerness through spectacle

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 04/24/2021

Defense Date 04/15/2021

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

Tag alternative controller,game design,interactive film,Interactive Media,kiss,OAI-PMH Harvest,queer,queer gameplay

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Campos, Martzi (committee chair), Moser, Margaret (committee member), Ruberg, Bo (committee member), Staples, Doug (committee member)

Creator Email aubrey@lynnfactor.com,isaacman@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-451677

Unique identifier UC11668648

Identifier etd-IsaacmanAu-9530.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-451677 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-IsaacmanAu-9530.pdf

Dmrecord 451677

Document Type Thesis

Rights Isaacman, Aubrey Lynn

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