Overview of my senior comp?

A screen shot of the Title Screen for the front end of the "Terrorism / Capitalism" senior project.

For the comp itself I took three games and hacked them using various programs. This process is highlighted in full detail in my written comp. These games were fully interactive and hosted on my computer. I placed my computer in an arcade cabinet that I designed and built for this project.

I wired the arcade cabinet's buttons to an I-PAC circuit board which converted the signals from the switches into USB, basically letting the computer think the audience member was using a keyboard instead of buttons. The keys were then mapped to the controls of the emulator program.

I installed and configured a front end to make the game selection easier for the viewer and to secure the desktop from intrusion. I did not include the exit key for the front end on the player controls for added security. I did however map a couple keys that would allow the user to reset and exit a game.

I had on screen instruction booklets for the George W's Crazy Crusade, Legend of the Mujahidden, and Terror Alley games that would come up with the operating system’s screensaver. I simply put the images of the books in a folder and set the screensaver to a slide show with a two minute delay. The screen saver would then display the images on the screen as an idle function when people were not playing the games.

In the next section I explain the changes briefly for each game and the ideas I wanted to convey through the work. For a more thorough discussion about the technical details of the project, I refer the interested reader to the technique section in my written comp. Finally I have the games and visual documentation which can be downloaded and played.

Reverse Engineered Games - The Programming and Design Portion of my Comp.

Hogan's Alley (Game A) - "Original Version"		Terror Alley (Game A) - "Hacked Version" (More Screenshots)

Hogan’s Alley was the first reverse engineered game. This game was a light zapper gun game for the old Nintendo Entertainment System. It had a simple plot where you had to shoot only the gang members in the game while avoiding the innocents. The game had a screen in the beginning of the game that would appear if the game was left idle long enough. This screen showed you what were the gang members and what were the innocents.

I changed this game into a hack called Terror Alley. I changed the sprites to represent Caucasian Americans and Middle Eastern people. I changed the game to have the White people as the terrorists instead of the Middle Eastern People. This was identified by the presence of a Caucasian holding some form of weapon and the Islamic people holding non threatening objects.

This game was initially a cognitive exercise where the player had to ascertain if the target had a weapon or not and then decide to shoot, so I retained this quality in the hacked version of the game. I had fun watching people struggle with this new level of stereotyping where they tended to shoot the Middle Eastern targets, succumbing to the media propagated image of a terrorist, rather than looking at the item they were holding.

Bug's Bunny's Crazy Castle (Level 1) - "Original Version"		G W's Crazy Crusade (Sand Level 1) - "Hacked Version" (More Screenshots)

The second game in the trinity was a 2D side-scroller called Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle. This appealed to the Bugs Bunny crowd where the goal was to guide the character through a series of castle levels. The main idea was to collect all the carrots to complete the board and avoid the other loony tune characters.

I changed this game to G W’s Crazy Crusade where I gave an alternative reason for the war in Iraq. This game was the first political stance that I took with an art piece. The game character now becomes George W. Bush and he has to collect all the oil in the stage to advance to the next level. This consumption and collection goal paralleled the original game but now the main character had to avoid the other Middle Eastern people.

In the original version Bugs Bunny could kill targets by dropping items on them such as 10-ton weights. I though death would add a meaning to the game that would complicate the underlying meaning that I wanted to convey. I changed the theme of killing into bribery. The main character would bride the Middle Eastern people with items of wealth while plundering their resources. The levels were remodeled from a medieval castle to a sandy desert littered with factories. Audience members thought this game was whimsically and fun but gave them the underlying message in a subtile way.

The Legend of the Ghost Lion (Beginning Story Screen) - "Original Version"		Legend of the Mujahiddin (Beginning story screen) - "Hacked Version" (More Screenshots)

The final game I chose for my comp was Legend of the Ghost Lion. This game was a role playing game and this genre has the potential for a lot of text. Role playing games generally take a long time to get the plot and characters established but this game breaks the rule. The main plot and characters for the game are laid out within the first five minutes of game play.

The Legend of the ghost lion’s plot had the player immerse themselves in the role of a little girl who goes to some foreign land. My guess is that her parents are explorers. Her parents never return from an expedition and you must go rescue them and solve the mystery of the legend of the white lion, a beast which attacked the village ages ago.

My version of this game was called Legend of the Mujahiddin, where I told the story of a Middle Eastern boy who has the potential and circumstances to become a terrorist. The game starts with the boy questioning his parents about a war with America and is confused why they need to be there because they captured their ruler and didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction.The parents try to explain that America is trying to help but are blown away by a stray bomb blast. The boy is dragged underground by his friends who are trying to escape the troops, convinced they will be killed too. The boy then has to make his way to freedom and struggle to uncover the answers he seeks.

I reverse engineered the graphics of the game transforming the lush vegetation and ocean landscape into the geography of modern day Jordan, a desert town. I also focused on the text more in this game than the others. This game had encrypted and compressed text that I had to tackle too.

Outcome of the Exhibition

The final works were displayed in the gallery in a completed arcade cabinet. The show was a big hit and I was awarded the outstanding senior comp award for my efforts. I had to defend my work before my panel where they discussed my work with me. Ironically the discussion was centered on the legal issues involved with this type of work and what this meant to the artist.

I have provided a condensed version but if you are interested I do have a copy of the written portion of my comp. In my written version you will find a concise report chronicling the progress with my comp, a complete listing of all the relevant artist research involved in the project, and an explanation of the techniques used to hack the games. I also have the visual documentation files of the senior comprehensive project.