Catfish is a three-part interactive experience that explores themes of virtual identities, online dating, and deception through the internet in the form of a game, animation and installation.
Materials: wood, fabric, safety pins, aluminum foil, desktop computer, keyboard, mouse, headphones, chair, desk, decorations (cups, utensils, papers ...clutter)
Project type
UCLA DMA Capstone Project
Area of Focus
Direction
Animation
Writing
Illustration
Game Design
Fabrication
Animation
Writing
Illustration
Game Design
Fabrication
Watch the short film:
Play the game:
Approach
Animation
Initially, this project started as an animation. I wanted to focus on telling a simple story in an elaborate way. I came up with a story I can pitch in one sentence:
"Boy looking for love online gets catfished ...by a literal catfish."
Storyboard
Based off of the simple pitch I came up with, I proceeded to visualize the scenes into a storyboard to iron out the details. I ran it by my classmates several times to get as much feedback as possible.
Character Design
The character design went through various renditions. After being so indecisive about this character's looks, I realized that I need to dig back into the story and understand what kind of character this person is - and that will dictate his look. For example, I wanted to be able to express his roller coaster of emotions through his facial expressions, so I drew the eyes a bit larger than I originally did.
Animatic/Animation
After my storyboard was set, I plugged my storyboards into a video file and timed it correctly with a rough sound design. Then, I replaced those storyboards with key poses and roughly animated around those key poses in ToonBoom.
Set Design/Background
In order to keep my scenes cohesive, I needed to come up with a rough sketch of the “set” of my animation. I carefully came up with a detailed blueprint of my character’s room, and made sure it aligns with his personality and character.
Game
I built the game to accompany and add an extra touch to my animation idea. I came up with an interactive “dating” game in which the objective of the player is to find their mate by browsing through profiles and examining them closely to see if they match the player’s preferences. The player must do so within a time limit, while simultaneously avoiding the “catfish” which is a profile that will try to deceive them.
Research
To get a better understanding of the topic, I gathered a lot of information on online-dating, catfishing, and UI heavy games. As generative research, I watched Catfish the documentary as well as the TV Show, created an OKCupid and Tinder account to get inspired by the interactions and interface, and scoured the internet for information on the caveats of online dating.
I analyzed several computer games to seek out UI games with the goal of comparing profiles against each other. In the game Papers, Please, the player is a border crossing immigration officer who must review each immigrant and returning citizen’s paperwork against a list of ever-increasing rules using a number of tools and guides, allowing in only those with the proper paperwork and and detaining all those without.
Game Play
After gathering my research, I started strategizing the game play. I knew that I wanted to create a dating simulation, so I started jotting down ideas on how to "gamify" online dating.
Questions I asked:
- How does one identify a catfish?
- What makes a profile seem "real"?
User Interface
I decided to call the game “Hooked” as a play on the concept of fishing and being infatuated with someone/something. I sketched out many renditions of the logo as well as the layout of the game. One thing I struggled with a lot was deciding the colors. I found it especially difficult because the colors would look different on every screen I tested on!
Match Candidates
I came up with roughly 20 potential matches for players to swipe through. This portion required a lot of character design and world building. For each character, I hand-drew their profile pictures and came up with a backstory. All of the characters catfish-statuses were predetermined before drawing the character profiles.
Player Avatars
Originally, my plan was to implement a webcam feature to add some realism to the “create your profile” portion in the beginning of the game. However, I later decided that it would fit more with my game if it was an avatar that I illustrated. I had some fun with it and made all of the body parts unconventionally colored and shaped so that it’s pretty impossible to create a realistic-looking image. I drew 7 different sets of body parts.
Installation
This was my first time having a piece in a gallery space, so I wanted to take advantage of that and create an environment to host my project to make it more immersive. Thus, I decided to play my film/game on a desktop computer on a cluttered desk that resembles the boy's, but placed that inside of the plastic cave that resembles the plastic fish-cave of the catfish in my animation.
Sketch + Prototype
I planned the cave to be 6 feet tall and 4.5 feet wide, just enough room to fit a table, iMac, and a chair inside. I sketched out a rough idea and then built a physical prototype to further visualize and solidify the dimensions of my "cave".
Fabrication
I used a flat sheet of ¾” MDF to cut out all of my pieces and screwed them together. I then draped my fabric on top of that and crumpled aluminum foil to make large bumps and used safety pins to reveal some hard edges, all to make it look more cave-like.
Final Touches
Finally, I placed an office chair, desktop computer, and desk with a lot of clutter on it to match that of the character in my film. I also added some speakers with an ambient fish tank-filter sound coming from it, and a blue led light bulb in the interior of my cave to give it an underwater-fish tank-like quality.
Senior Show
The gallery opening was a success - the cave was very intriguing to people and they took turns waiting in line to interact with my immersive experience!
Final Thoughts
The most enjoyable part about working on this project was not the final product, but the journey in getting there. While I faced many obstacles, I learned how to plan for large-scale projects and design the entirety of an experience.