Fred Truman
Design & Code Creative
Kigonagrams v0.8
November 3, 2010
View the applet and source code
For our midterm project in introduction to computational media I really had no idea what I wanted to do until last class when we started discussing display text and fonts. I thought it might be cool to build on the goofing around I had been doing with object collisions and then I very randomly (although probably influenced by other students’ description of their ideas) thought of how fun bananagrams are – except when you play against someone who is psycho about crosswords and scrabble and they start coming up with insane two-letter words that have no practical meaning.
So why not create a limitation and add some flexibility in the structure – instead of having all letters being attached to one another – why not create a story? A little like refrigerator magnets – b then I thought haikus would be a great format because there’s a lot of artistic license and room for creativity but grammar and annoyingly obscure knowledge isn’t so important. It can be wacky – but it has to make a little sense. The name is the combination of anagrams (or obviously bananagrams) and kigo, which are words or phrases associated with a particular season used in Japanese poetry.
So the idea is pretty simple, and this first iteration is very basic. I gathered about 25 English language haikus by Jane Reichhold, stuck them into an XML file and then started loading them at random into little bananagram-like blocks. Right now, you can play around and make new haikus, but I eventually want to add:
- give people the ability to collect the haikus and tweet them to a kigonagrams twitter account – like a high score board
- allow multiple blocks to be move at once
- create some smooth transitions between haikus
- maybe a nice clicking noise for the collisions
- iron out some general bugs
- set it up on a touch screen interface (or better yet, develop a gesture interface)
Give it a try! I hope it’s fun. Here’s my first shot at a kigonagram
