Experiments
I’ve made a small flash experiment, and I’ve posted the source .fla file. I used to make these all the time when I was learning actionScript, but have since found more “practical” things to make. However, despite this lack of immediate use or purpose, little projects such as this are fulfilling; I never leave them thinking that I have wasted my time.
Flash offers the opportunity to combine two worlds that I’m very interested in: The programming world (logical, math, code) and the visual world (creativity, art, experience). My hope is that in posting (and making public) experiments like this, they will start to manifest a shape and purpose of their own.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Dude, that’s badass. My favorite part is actually how it bleeds a little bit over the edges. Really cool.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Hey man, very cool. Definite throwback to some of your ‘Cuse portfolio work.
I don’t know if you need ‘click the mouse’ in the lower right. Something interesting happens when the user is ‘done’ with the first animation and then looks for what is next. A curious user will just start trying things, and clicking is early on the list. You’re in a position to reward curiosity with discovery.
It’s also interesting to interact with a short cycle. I clicked through each one spending a little less time than I did on the last until, with a touch of disappointment, I came back to the beginning. I went around a few more times until I found a favorite (red), played with it, and left. I wonder if you can manufacture or suspend that “maybe there’s one more” feeling through an intentionally convoluted system of cycles and sub-cycles that slowly reveal the bigger picture. I don’t know, seems like a tricky. There’s a fine line between mysterious and opaque.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Thanks!
Luke, that’s great feedback. The instructions to click come from other experiments I’ve done, and then later watched people operate. For some reason, people see them as a little “mouse trailer,” and never click the mouse. Then again, I like the idea of rewarding curiosity… so I suppose it comes down to my target audience.
I really like the idea of adding “suspense” to it somehow, by making each click a bit different. Random variables and new colors might accomplish this, but then I might run the risk of making something that is noticeably random. Perhaps within the context of this non-random system (spinning, following your mouse, changing on-click, scaling, etc.) it’ll work. Version 2 is in the works…