Pimp My Shot
The Pimp My Shot prototype explored how we might allow players to paint, possibly as a civilian profession while limiting the ability to make inappropriate content or at least making it so difficult that it could be policed downstream. I dubbed that concept "Mean Time to Penis", and obviously we wanted to increase that MTTP as much as possible.
This prototype attempts that by abstracting the painting controls such that it's not possible to paint individual pixels or even to choose specific colors. It does that by requiring a "backing image" from which the painter's brush selects colors automatically, processed through various highly configurable algorithms. Then, various brushes emit "painter particle bots" that take the color they've been given and wander around the canvas following relatively simple but combinatorically complex rules and behaviors. The end results feels like a living canvas flowing with paint that takes your queues but has a mind of its own.
This prototype attempts that by abstracting the painting controls such that it's not possible to paint individual pixels or even to choose specific colors. It does that by requiring a "backing image" from which the painter's brush selects colors automatically, processed through various highly configurable algorithms. Then, various brushes emit "painter particle bots" that take the color they've been given and wander around the canvas following relatively simple but combinatorically complex rules and behaviors. The end results feels like a living canvas flowing with paint that takes your queues but has a mind of its own.
Even in this simplistic proof of concept, brushes had 20 or so parameters that could vary wildly creating a surprisingly wide range of styles. While the finished result could often fall into a "so, like a photoshop filter" bucket, that was often not the case. Moreover, the act of painting was oddly playful and compelling.
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