Kaiju Hero K.O.! – Cycle 3
Posted: May 7, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Armed with valuable feedback from my cohorts and mentors, I decided it was time to level up the gameplay experience this time around, and that would involve puppets – battle puppets, to be precise. I wanted to free the players from poking static cut-outs and provide space for mobility. I also wanted to freshen up the visuals, including adding a retro gamer cityscape for the projected stats. The bar graph I decided needed to go down, not up, showing a decrease in vitality as hit points accrued.
The puppets were wired to the Makey Makey with zones of aluminum either glued or taped on the figure, specifically foam core pieces (handcrafted to fit over the body and support the wires). For the bulk of the body I used my balloon twisting skills. I really felt it was important to incorporate an inflatable element (especially since the kaiju suit/puppet will be made of inflatable materials for the thesis). Furthermore, the balloons were easier to repair/replace.
Much testing of different designs went into the process of bulding each puppet, the balloon designs needed to be styled for easier maintenance, so I refrained from excessive details or complexity. For the heads of the hero and kaiju I knew they would be taking a good amount of punishment during each round, so I employed a balloon art technique called “deforming” – inserting a balloon inside of another balloon – which insulated key balloon components with two to four layers of latex. Wiring the aluminum zones into the kaiju claws, hero sword, and hit zones took some considerable time but once in place proved reliable for dynamic contact.
Available resources were not only physical materials/equipment but also expertise from within the cohort of students. One such classmate, Chad (an avid Touchdesigner fan), assisted in my patch for the background music to speed up after one of the bars reached halfway down (ten of the twenty hit points). More logic components were involved. I also was able to add a boom noise when the kaiju got K.O.ed (I couldn’t figure out how to apply it to both in time, so I kept things as is for this cycle). Considerable noodling ensued as Chad prepared specific component/settings for me to integrate into the patch. Such is the way of Touchdesigner, a series of tweaks and threads in the process, oftentimes retracing steps to work out better solutions/outcomes.
Other items from the wish list couldn’t fit into the experience, such as additional onomatopoeia appearing on the projection in connection to specific sound effects. Though it would have been cool to include, the most essential elements of the game play required my full attention. Additional connecting wires were added to the puppets to facilitate mobility across the tabletop. Much of the look of this setup screamed “prototype in progress” – making things pretty and polished would have come later, first we needed to ensure this jerry-rigged operation would consistently work each round. I made fresh balloon bodies for both characters the morning of the presentation of Cycle 3 to afford all the balloons’ stamina possible for the battles ahead.
It didn’t take long before one of the kaiju’s biceps popped mid-fight, but that did little to deter the players from gouging, swatting and striking each other through their puppet proxy. All those hours of fabrication and prep work paid off within five minutes of intense game play, delight and laughter. The feedback afterwards poured in during circle time, along with more ideas for subsequent cycles. The puppetry combined with the colorful balloons added to the playful nature of the gaming experience for players who felt sufficient safe distance from the action. The group also observed how each character had their own respective advantages to exploit; the offset of hit zones and size forced the players to employ more strategy during the battle round. Alex observed that this cycle wasn’t far off from becoming a polished product to offer audiences, I agree this could be a great spin-off, mini version of the immersive experience. The projected media was largely ignored by the players engrossed in the ring but served more enjoyment for the surrounding audience. What did cue the players during game play was the sped-up music as one or both fighters racked up 50%+ damage. Suggestions included providing some way for the players to see their health bar diminish during play, perhaps adding pixel strips on the back of each puppet that corresponded with Touchdesigner’s data. All in all, this cycle provided valuable insight towards the next iterations of Kaiju Hero K.O.! which could very well diverge into other applications for different audiences/age groups. One big takeaway was to explore more potential with puppetry and perhaps other materials. One element I was not able to fit into this cycle was the use of piezo sensors/transmitters, introduced to me by Alex in between Cycles 2 and 3; hopefully I will implement those for Cycle 4. Wires did prove reliable for transmitting signals, though I wonder as we scale the size how that may change.
And here are some additional clips taken with my super fancy phone, just for fun…
Kaiju Hero K.O.! – Cycle 2
Posted: May 7, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
One of my main aims for this latest version of the score was to incorporate desired sound effects and audio clips to enhance the experience with my rudimentary setup from Cycle 1. I received assistance from Michael on the necessary components for not only playing the sound but also at specific times. I also wanted to update the “boop” sound of contact by swapping it out with combat-esque sound effects. Using the keyboard from Garage Band on my iPad I chopsticked up a composition for the background music. It became more and more clear this needed to have the feel of a video game, so I kept certain motifs in mind as I prepared my media files. Logic components were added to cue audio clips announcing the victory of the hero or kaiju characters once one of the bars reached all the way up to its threshold. Unfortunately I had yet to devise a way for the game to reset automatically (I had to assign the “R” key to manually tap before another round wiped the slate clean), and there were other visual cues I wanted to add to correspond with the audio (ie: “VICTORY”, “KO!”, etc.). I kept the same figurines, because the focus on this cycle was more on honing in on the audio element of this experience. Updating the sounds and adding background music seemed to help the testers to feel more of the video game vibe, even though the rest of the setup had remained unchanged from Cycle 1, participants noted a significant improvement to the overall experience. I noticed a more competitive nature emerge from the players in response to the updated combat sounds and victory announcements, certainly a good sign we were heading in the right direction.
This experience needed, above all else, a fun gaming interphase, but safety also came up as an important factor. My original idea for the thesis concept involved LARP (Live Action Role Play) foam armor and weapons – equipped with sensors – for the hero while an operator donned an inflatable suit (with sensors sewn into the ripstop fabric) for the kaiju. Alex and others voiced this could present various complications to implement safely, the risk may outweigh the payoff. Talks of perhaps making the kaiju more like an inflatable puppet that could be operated from a safe distance offered interesting potential I really hadn’t considered seriously before, but the more I pondered over it, the more appealing a puppeteering operation became.
Other great suggestions from the class provided valuable insights into what piqued their interest. One suggestion included to pit the characters with their respective players from across the table rather than side by side. Another was to involve some kind of shield/blocking feature to enhance combat strategy. The endearing background music also could potentially intensify the experience if it sped up over the course of the battle round.
Kaiju Hero K.O.! – Cycle 1…
Posted: May 7, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
This cycle and its subsequent iterations stem from my concept for my thesis. Unlike my fellow theatre MFAs, my thesis will not be a design for one of the staged productions. As an MFA in Media Design I would’ve arranged the projections and other media for a show; however, with the approval of my advisor Alex and the department I’ve got a very different concept in mind: an immersive experience built from the ground up. Working title is Kaiju Hero K.O.! with a simple premise: save the city from a raging monster. When I had first pitched the idea of an immersive experience for my thesis to Alex (months before I officially started my program) – Alex encouraged me to “simplify to achieve balance,” and subsequently the original idea evolved into something that I feel would still be ambitious – but also more manageable with the resources and time available. This DEMS class offered a perfect opportunity to better understand those resources, draft up a basic score, then apply it under the scrutiny of valuaction. More elaborate means would be utilized in subsequent cycles, each one with specific questions to answer which would culminate into a body of research to inform my actual thesis, slated for fall 2028.
Encouraged by mentors Alex Oliszewski and Michael Hesmond to start small, I decided to focus on devising an interphase that responded to physical contact in a very noticeable way. I determined to create two rudimentary stand-ins for the main characters, the Kaiju and the Hero, which would be engineered to receive focused, physical contact and translate the input of that interaction into some sort of audiovisual format.
Resources offered included the Makey Makey circuit board, with alligator wires. I found some aluminum foil and collected materials for building a mock-up of the kaiju and hero, respectively. The Touchdesigner node-based software seemed to offer potential for receiving and interpreting the Makey Makey’s input. As an expert in Touchdesigner, Michael’s guidance proved invaluable as I started to wrap my head around the various components and how they worked to curate an interactive experience. I settled on repurposed milk carton plastic for the figurine stand-ins, carving out zones inside each silhouette to allow contact with the layer of aluminum foil underneath. A cardboard backing proved necessary for stability and durability for the demo.
Connecting the figures with the alligator wires seemed straightforward enough, specific keys designated to “boop” when the respective zone was touched, once Michael showed me how to assign keys from the Makey Makey into the proper component in Touchdesigner. I also wanted to show the result of that contact as a bar graph, one bar for the Hero alongside one for the Kaiju, counting up with each contact on their foil zones. This, like many things in Touchdesigner, was easier said than done. By and by, thanks to help from mentors and a healthy stack of tutorials, I was ready to showcase this first version of Kaiju Hero K.O.! to the world of our tiny but mighty class.
I struggled to get the audio clips I prerecorded integrated into the patch, so I picked my battles and tabled that item from my wish list to be addressed in a following cycle. We (and by “we” I mean Michael and I…OK, mostly Michael) managed a solid “BOOP” sound for any successful contact with the figuring and the wired, aluminum swords I molded. One of the takeaways was learning how to communicate with the robust nature of Touchdesigner, along with keeping my focus narrow enough to fulfill successful milestones within a given timeframe.