Flicker [2022.8 ~]

  Project Starting Point learning a new language is always difficult for people: there is some interest at the beginning to motivate people to start up a new language but when the repetitive remembering process becomes dominant, people start to lose interest and the motivation to continue. there are not much better ways to help people become proficient in one language; however, if people begin the learning experience in a more interesting way, they will be more likely to continue learning in the future.  my language proposal is Chinese, on one hand, it is my native language that I am most familiar with, on the other hand, Chinese characters have such a long history that there are many interesting ideas to discover from the formation of characters (details can refer to background research section). considering the learning process for a beginner in a language  is similar to a glimpse of thousands of years of character evolution: from basic characters to combined more complex characters,

  Setup Intended Play Experience the materials for the playtest were small wooden tokens that were printed by the laser cutter on birch and plywood. the diameter of these tokens was approximately 10 centimeters and the desired setup of the playground was about 60 cm by 40 cm. the surface of the playground was also a big issue friction would play an important role - the final playtest was on the normal desk table with the minimum friction possible. for the laser cut tokens playtest, my desired playtest experience is these steps; players see the tokens on the table and analyze what are the possible combinations by the hint panel on the side players aim the desired character token and flick that to collide with other tokens  (if desirable) players will flick the tokens with a big force and there will be multiple tokens colliding with each other after the collision happens, the player will notice the panel that changes the description to the newly combined character How did the Playtest We