Hello Laarni!
That's an interesting idea for a site functionality. There sometimes are sound examples in the library, but there is no easy way to have it all together in one place. I know wikidot functions a bit already and will try to put it in.
Please remember that you can also edit everything and if you have any questions, shoot them!
Hi! I'm Laarni.
I hope to learn more music games and activities. I'd love to hear it.
The last issue of Synzine has games quite in spirit of the wiki (accessible, fun-oriented, elegant).
https://www.pninax.com/uploads/1/0/4/7/10476159/synzine_augustl19_single.pdf
Personally I'll try each of them at our meetings.
the page should now work much better on small screens. if you have any suggestions regarding that please write here.
Oh this is great! It's a much better flow of time, as I imagine it, with fewer explanations and switches between activities. I think the nature of the descriptions may depend on the individual players and group dynamic. I would be interested to see how it worked over several rounds as people get more used to the game and to each other's habits (tallying points after each round). Would strategies develop over in the second and third rounds? Is that too long to expect people to play?
The first issue of a new journal "Improvised Music - Open Scores" is out:
http://im-os.net
See what's in:
Open Scores – what is this ? (Carl Bergstrøm-Nielsen)
Amusement Arcade (Jacob Thompson-Bell)
Changeable Spring (Johan Toft)
Athena, Aristotle, Helen (Michael Pisaro)
The plan described in release info is to include both articles and open pieces.
Here is a version that we took for the last test at our music game meetings + tweak from the discussion. This is simple and quite streamlined, but (still) lack one key thing…
There are 'global phases', first for description/imagination and the second for execution/comparison.
Everyone has a sheet with a table for noting estimated time and one sheet is at the table for real time.
One by one from the starting player people describe their ideas for others who estimate and note down their bets (hidden betting although engaging in a misleading banter is a good fit here ;) ).
Put your sheets down still hidden.
Then music starts and it runs in form of "movements" of number equal to the number of players. Time-tracking is done by the last player for the first movement, and by the first player for all the next movements. The real times are written on a public sheet.
Pick up your sheets, compare seconds, announce a winner.
Still lacking is how to describe a description. What actually the game expects and demands from players at this stage is for me now a key matter.
2019-06-30
Last meeting before the summer holiday break was quite fine. Lots of thoughtful discussion about played games among which some rare: Dixit for duets, Orbit II (Kalani Das's game), Imagined seconds (in it's discussion thread soon with a recording), Rules cumulation (starting with total "free", everyone gradually adds a rule and all of them apply - this idea needs help), Noodle game (awaiting a good end condition now), Into the Labirynth for two competing teams of "adventurers".
We "desparately" need an article on Scratch Orchestra/Cornelius Cardew in the context of music games. ;)
Also with "modern" standards of our library this game would not be considered 'well-defined'. Moving games between categories might cause some trouble for users though :L.
2019-04-28 2019-05-26
Two meetings were poorly attended.
Recordings of games from the hut that are available (usually those that are fully played through without too much laughing ;) ) are now all up: https://soundcloud.com/odolany/sets
I think after yesterday's tests in the Hut, even if we didn't develop the ending, the game deserves to be included in the library as beta.
Would you add it, Dr?
One another idea for the personal dice: 2↑, 2↓, 3↑, 3↓, 4, 6 ?
for triton and even for major third direction matters less anyway.
directions for semitone would be interesting too.
Let's record some takes next time.
wikidot doesn't allow scripting. but I found a way around (it works for all paragraph not a single term - so shoudn't be many terms at once).
it takes the current explanation from the glossary
http://musicgames.wikidot.com/glossary:first-rule-of-music-games
2019-03-10
This time I'll not get into detail, but the meeting was quite difficult for me as there were so many different approaches to what games are and what music is… ;)
But from march meetings I'll add recordings https://soundcloud.com/odolany/sets/march-meetings
notrightmusic's Room Score was played with added mechanics: starting point was established and one person didn't watch the Conductor and was to guess on what place in the room the piece was ended.
For the Q&A, I was thinking that no one would be able to ask more than one question. I wouldn't want it to become an extensive dialogue. But I have some doubts about it now, for the reasons you mentioned and also for another reason.
Thinking about it from another level of distance now, what I'm mainly hoping the game does is this:
description
imagination
execution
comparison
I want it to be simple enough that it moves very simply from one to the next. I could imagine stealing some of the mechanics of betting, for example on horse races. (I would need to research these.) Or it could simply be that each person fills in their own chart and any discussion would happen after the actions have been executed. If it were done after a break (allowing for preparation) and each person was responsible for his or her own numbers, there would be minimal down time. Based on whatever happens in the first round, the players could make additional constraints or rules for a second round.
Thanks for thinking it through with me!
As getting design feedback is an important part of this website, I'll throw that in of my first impressions from playing:
1) Consider adding keyboard input. Maybe sth like an octave of:
w e - t y u
A S D F G H J
If you want to reach a good score …
Do you reeaally want to force people who are bored with lower levels to sit through them to get high score?
Adjust the scoring for maximum fun and minimum "additional necessary hints" as the one above ;).
3*) As there is so much freedom for the player, this game is the closest to the main focus of our wiki. So I'll add that too: maybe it would be fun to make it a bit more creatively involving? You deal with sounds sequence, if players were adding notes to the sequence one by one the game would be… semi-compositional ;)
Thanks for adding your creations to the wiki.
Afraid though that the jigsaw puzzle here is actually outside of scope of the library as it can't be used to perform music.
I'll prepare for it a place in some other area of the page.
Would it be helpful to list some possible (non-musical) actions as prompts?
Helpful although dangerously suggestive. Maybe more elaboration for "how to describe your sound" could do. In our test most common form was similar to a 'long title'. Your "rolling or dropping" example is informative just at this level - as you would describe the action more than sound itself.
It would also be good that the performer not know the guesses in advance.
Huh, we were taking care of that (guess it seemed obvious/natural gaming-wise), but at the same time it might be what extends the downtime.
Another option would be that each player has a pin or a tag or a marker of a different color…
For game it might be better, but as for the contents and connotations this is some kind of a revolt ;). Numerology, reducing sounds to digits, this is strong in the game now, but surely it might be also about space, why not…
one of several different activities…
As for the context, I remember thinking that this is one of 'after-the-break' games. This is quite a common type, where players need to invent or plan something out, so it's best to hint them their task before the break, so they are prepared at the start of the game itself. We didn't do it like that, so there was some waiting with just that.
I think having a Q&A section before the sound might make the guesses less random or luck based.
This might be interesting. Do you have a procedure in mind? There are risks of slowing the flow down and it's hard to quickly introduce some dynamics here, like ways to get informational advantage over other players, trade-offs with the risk of helping others more than yourself etc.
Thanks so much for this feedback!
I should clarify (probably within the instructions as well) that the sounds don't have to be music-based, though they could be. It could be any action that makes noise. The performer can have more or less control over the sound, depending on what they choose. I'm not sure how that plays out in terms of strategy. It doesn't have to be skill based, at least for the performer. They could drop or roll something on the floor or a table, for example. I don't think performance skill is a great advantage, since no one is guessing the duration of their own performance. Would it be helpful to list some possible (non-musical) actions as prompts?
About the dead time, I like the idea of each person keeping their own score card. It would also be good that the performer not know the guesses in advance. Another option would be that each player has a pin or a tag or a marker of a different color, and puts their guess onto a timeline score sheet. Then the actual time could be marked on there and you could visually see who came closest. I think I prefer this option, since it gets away from extra calculation time, but I'd be interested in your thoughts. In both cases you would still need a timekeeper.
I was trying to think about incentive structures. For me, this is more of a mini-game or activity, probably not something to be played for an extended period of time on its own, so I'm reluctant to make it more complicated to learn to play. It could stand separately as one of several different activities. Or it could possibly be one component of a larger game.
I think having a Q&A section before the sound might make the guesses less random or luck based. The people who are guessing could ask the performer one question each before committing to a guess. I'm not sure if that would increase interaction or create new timing issues.
Hook I mentioned is not a sharp one, and would serve mostly to take attention away from music actually.
The game currently lets different participants play experimental music by making it easy for those that don't like it. You can listen intently, but if you don't want to (or can't) you may just focus on imagined seconds [;)] and the activity gets less awkward for you this way… By distracting the listener it also takes the stress of the player.
I don't really see the attention hook, as you guess before the player plays, and all is left is to watch the clock, listen or don't. There is some attention to a pretty meaningless number, not to the music. As for tweaking, the thing with these simple, single idea games is that tweaking it often is just making a whole new game. Maybe to focus attention to the music the thing to guess should be something which cannot be simply measured by a clock but requires active listening on part of other players? Guess the meter? Count number of some kind of sound?
