Museum of Mechanics: Fishing
The Museum of Mechanics: Fishing (MoM:F) project was a joint independent study conducted at UC Santa Cruz's Games and Playable Media Masters program, and spearheaded by programming director Michael John (Toys for Bob). It was inspired by Johnnemann Nordhagen's virtual Museum of Mechanics - Lockpicking exhibit and aimed to create a digital museum where players could play and experience fishing mechanics across games history. The project is still in development as an elective that future students can contribute to over the coming years.
I joined the project at its inception as a researcher and worked on it for two quarters (6 Months). My contributions can be seen below
01
Pre-Production Research
During Pre-production I collaborated with 4 other researchers to build a sister website to the museum that cataloged examples of fishing mechanics across gaming history. I focused on recording the fishing systems and mechanics in games on the Nintendo Wii, PC, and multiple VR systems, which helped us narrow our scope for the project and focus our attention on the games we wanted to recreate.
My contributions to the sheet can be read at PDF to the right.
Museum of Mechanics: Catalog Contributions
02
Design Document Creation
During Pre Production I also created a few design documents to organize our workflow and clarify details across teams. The documents I created were:
1. A 'Golden Path' doc to explain how a user would realistically navigate the museum's exhibits from game start up to completion. This was created alongside the Project Lead and our environmental designers to focus the art direction and layout of the museum.
2. A sample text document summarizing the Museum Plaque. Museum Plaques were one method of displaying our research findings within the museum and I created this document to show what that might look like. I focused on giving context to the specific mechanic's history by highlighting the core game loop, the development studios, and the game's place in the history of fishing games. It currently serves as a guide for future student researchers.
3. An organizational rubric for the companion website to the museum. I created this to help our research team interpret the findings from our fishing mechanics research. I categorized the main findings into core, side, and micro fishing games - which helped us focus on the games we intended to recreate.
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The golden path document can be found by clicking on the PDF. A collection of the other documents can be found in the zip file under it.
Museum of Mechanics: Golden Path
Museum of Mechanics: Documents
03
Black Bass Fishing Heuristic Analysis
Later in production I conducted a heuristic analysis into Black Bass Fishing (SNES). I noted the details of the game's mechanics, such as how quickly the power bar filled up, the size of the fishing area, and more. I condensed my findings into a technical design document, which I then shared with the engineering team.
My work helped shape their task of recreating Black Bass Fishing and can be read at the PDF on the right.
Museum of Mechanics: Black Bass Fishing TDD
04
Research Project Directing
Midway through production I conducted a heuristic analysis of the fishing mechanics in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64). I conducted this analysis alongside two other researchers over Zoom, where we took turns playing the game over Parsec (a remote access tool). We noted our observations (how the game targeted fish, fish behavior, casting and reel speed, etc.) on a shared excel sheet. Our findings have laid the groundwork for future students to pick up our work once Black Bass Fishing is properly recreated
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My contributions to the spreadsheet can be read at the PDF to the right
Museum of Mechanics: Ocarina of Time Heuristic Study