Finally, Some Free Time

Finally, Some Free Time, 2020

Finally, Some Free Time is an interactive game piece written in Processing 3 and p5.js with assets created in Affinity Photo. It was designed to highlight the experience of physical isolation and the irony found in the idea of free time vs. its physical manifestation. One would assume that being forced to remain in one's home for as long as possible would result in endless free time, but experience has shown that this is not quite on the mark. In physical isolation, the home becomes a place of work. There is no longer a separation of work and rest, and I find myself spending less and less time as free time as I bounce around between basic human needs, actions that are required of me by others, and keeping myself physically active as much as possible. Finally, Some Free Time serves as an abstraction of this reality, giving the user the task of balancing different aspects of a pixel's life while trapped at home in a state where even rest and recreation feel like practical necessities as opposed to states of relaxation. The piece consists of a background image, sprites, and generated shapes. A class was written that allows for the placement and properties of the "status objects" in the scene. These "status objects" will replenish a status bar at the bottom of the screen while depleting others using collision areas (comparing their position and size to the position and size of the character). A class was also written for the walls, which are objects consisting of colored rectangles representing collision areas that prevent movement by the character. The status bars deplete over time, forcing the user to travel to the different "status objects" to replenish them. The game ends when one of the status bars reaches zero. When the game ends, the window closes. In the p5.js version, the screen goes black.

Affinity Photo, Processing 3 (p5.js), HTML

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