Stories are a big part of Hawaiian culture. Solomon Enos is an artist who came to visit us today. He shared his belief that all of the mo’olelo–the stories–begin in seed form. Solomon believes open source escapism and activism in art are to be shared. He said, “Sharing is how we survived through the millennium and Hawai’i had came to the threshold of losing their stories. The biggest gift we have, is to share our stories.”

Solomon Enos is an awesome, energetic and passionate artist who draws deeply from his Hawaiian heritage. He advised the participants to launch their own canoe “into a new journey by building your story into an exciting experience that opens the door to your imagination. Creating feeds your Spirit, your Ko’liano. It is healthy to work on your stories, to get into the flow, where time has no meaning.”

Solomon is also a game designer, and he led us in playing his visually stunning card game.  He encouraged the Skins participants to make their game “delicious, to make it nutritious, to make the game full of flavor”. With a philosophy much like our own, he stated “With story telling, we build on the past to make sense of the present and the future, and we translate thought into reality. We can do this by having no more secrets, show reality and how life really is.”

Matt Sproat is a recording artist who comes from a musical family and is blessed with talent.  Matt is publishing his fifth album and is inspired by Hawaiian music. “Music can make you happy. Sound makes you feel. Sound is tangible,” he said as he plugged in his guitar to introduce the software, Audacity.His lessons will focus on how to create and manipulate sound for game play.

At the end of this fast paced day the Skins 5.0 team had a plan for a video game that is going to be adventurous and challenging. We gathered, as usual, to end with an Oli. Have a relaxing evening and Mahalo nui.

Aloha and good morning.

After having looked at all of the different areas of building games it is time to look at the software we will be using to build. The morning discussion focused on the game’s story & character(s) and using newly learned concepts centered around the possibilities of using beautiful Hawaiian stories and language to create a remarkable game.

Today Nancy shared the proper naming conventions and folder structures for team organization.

Chad showed how to begin to use the Adobe Photoshop basic tools and workflow. Photoshop is the industry standard image manipulation program and is used by photographers, graphic designers, video game artists, advertising and meme designers. 

Julian introduced Unity’s basic navigation tools. Unity is a game platform with built-in modules and features to help speed up the development process for games.

Simon-Albert & Pippin lectured on the origin of puzzles in video games and the basic principles of puzzle-making. It was a heavy tech day so rest up everyone. Mahalo nui.

This morning Owisokon Lahache and Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa shared their stories with the participants.  Owisokon is a Kanien’kehá:ka artist and educator and has been the Skins mentor and cultural consultant since the very beginning.  Senior professor Lilikalā  is an expert in Hawaiian ancestral knowledge, mythology, genealogy, history of the Hawaiian Kingdom, traditional Hawaiian food sustainability and in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. Each spoke about the importance of knowing your roots, your foundation. They both believe that you have to know where you originated. Knowing the past, the original and traditional stories, geneology, language and culture and how you travelled to where you are today will help to build a path to the future not only for yourself but for your community and children. Our cultures are rich with mo’olelo/stories that speak loudly of love, conflict, pride, perseverance, survival and challenges. These can be drawn from to build meaningful games that can showcase culture, genealogy and language.

Participants gathered to discuss stories, noting most popular character types, action, morals, and unique cultural elements that they would have the opportunity to draw from by the end of their storytelling exploration. Along with the introduction of Hawaiian language and historical land challenges, the possibility of adding in an RTS (real-time status) with interactive story options was excitedly brought to the table.

Simon-Albert lectured about extracting rules from personal experiences, crafting metaphors through game play and expressing stories through environments. Pippin continued the concept of prototyping, and the importance of iteration and play testing.

It was a full morning and when our delicious lunch arrived everyone was ready to eat and to relax.

Nancy outlined the process and roles of a professional game development team. She also introduced the way the Skins workshop teams would be divided (prototyping and production), and the software we will use to create the game.

Participants began considering the project roles that they would like to develop.

The day continued with developing a prototype and time to discuss what parts of Hawaiian story and language could be added into the game.

Mahalo nui, rest well everyone.

Participants arrived to a fully functional lab and classroom space that is filled with state-of-the-art hardware fully loaded with the freeware that will be utilized throughout the workshop.

Introductions to the workshop instructors, mentors, and presenters began our morning. Next, Jason and Skawennati, co-directors of AbTeC and the Skins workshops, shared their art and research practices.

Jason told us the origin story of how he became an artist, professor and research director, showing us images and clips of his artwork, too. Skawennati, an artist who addresses history, the future, and change, particularly as they relate to Aboriginal cultures, talked about some of the experiences that influenced her along the way, including Barbie and video games. She showed clips from her machinima projects, TimeTraveller and She Falls For Ages. She then moved on to the first actual lesson, Storytelling 01, featuring a video called Seeing Red by Elizabeth LaPensée (formerly Beth Aileen Lameman), about Native representations in media and video games. A discussion of stereotypes ensued, in which the participants explained some of the particulars of being from a community whose culture has been coopted for tourism as well as entertainment.

Pippin Bar is an assistant professor in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montréal where he currently teaches an introduction to creative programming, a game design studio, and an internet/web-based art studio. He opened his presentation telling the participants all about his work creating games, game design, experience design, prototyping, and criticism. Pippin introduced the key elements in games as well as genres that are popular in today’s gaming world. He also explained the Skins philosophy to use free software as much as possible so that participants can access it at home.

Participant-Mentor Noelani Arista, discussed Hawaiian culture, sharing that mo’olelo is a collection of stories, songs, chants about Hawaiian culture.  Discussion about the good, the bad and the misrepresentation of Hawaiian culture that exists in media is certainly inspiring participants to work together to get fuller stories with awesome ideas to tell their own mo’olelo.

Simon-Albert Boudreault said that stories/feelings should be expressed in new media, especially games. Without an emotional connection, game play is not stimulating. Without excitement and anticipation, the game may not capture the player’s interest for long term playability.

Nancy Townsend’s love of games started before courses were an option outside of expensive private schools. She travelled and tried everything digital media, succeeding as a producer because of her artistic past. Nancy helped lay a game foundation which led to the Cree Syllabics Virtual Reality project. She joked that as a jack-of-all-trades she is not an expert, however, her understanding of the tech and its limitations and abilities is critical to the success of many complex projects, like a video game.  Nancy can fill in gaps, and makes sure the project is completed.

Nancy helped participants look at the “house keeping” for the workshop: logging into computer, accounts, Google Drive & chat, Game FSO, the blog (to access lesson plans, check the schedle, past games and more).

What a busy day! Please bring your inspiration: drawings, Photoshop, downloaded images, mo’olelo, song, chant, or video to the table for tomorrow’s decision making. Mahalo nui.

The Skins 5.0 Kanaeokana workshop on Aboriginal storytelling and video game design in Hālau ‘Īnana in Honolulu, will be an action-packed learning adventure that will take place 17^th  July – 4^th  August, 2017.

Our team along with the fifteen participants have begun our adventure with a beautiful mo’olelo (story telling) event at Papahana Kuaola on their reclaimed territory nestled in the valley below majestic mountains. Our two hosts, Kḗhaunani  Abad Kealaiwikuamo’o and Keoni, welcomed everyone with pule kinohi hu (sharing) of a traditional Hawaiian ceremonial circle to build ho’olauna (becoming  at ease with each other). Each of our team members were delighted and honored to receive a lei.

Lilikalá Kame’elehiwa shared the genealogy of the Hawaiian peoples, their struggle to regain their language, and the stories of Maui and Pele.

As the sun began to set, Jamaica and her father Jon Osorio chanted a history of their family, their ancestors and their connection to the land in a wonderful melodic mo’olelo (story). They told the stories of their struggle to save the land and of how the people loved the gifts of creation and the true value of life and sacrifice.

Jon sang about the struggle the Hawaiian people have made to protect the earth, their sovereignty and their language.

The evening ended with a wonderful sharing of their traditional foods. The team and the participants are looking forward to a very productive and fun workshop at the Kanaeokana facilities.

Mahu’i  kēiamua aku

Aloha!

We were thrilled to receive 45 applications to this workshop. We are deeply grateful for how many talented, accomplished people applied to the program.

The main attraction of this past meeting was the Test Game! The Skins team made a demo game to model the process that the participants will undertake. Importantly, the test game allows for exploration of pre-decided constraints. For example, we’ve chosen a point-and-click system that will allow players to navigate the game world by pointing and clicking on their destination or the object they want to interact with. As well, we selected a fixed-camera viewpoint, meaning that the camera maintains a fixed position and moves along a pre-set path, in first- or third-person perspective. This viewpoint was made famous in the Resident Evil game.

In the test game, the player takes on the role of a huntress pursuing her arch-nemesis. She tracks her enemy to the ruins of a castle in nearby mountains. The test game begins as she prepares for one final confrontation. The game demonstrates the point-and-click movements, the camera capabilities, and also how to pick up and interact with objects and other characters.

In addition to this, the test game allowed the Skins 5.0 team to troubleshoot managing all of our work and files as a group. By creating a test game together, the team learned about the new game engine and versioning system (a program that documents past versions of files in case of corruption and allows teams to easily share everything) and also learned which limitations to impose to ensure a functional final game that everyone, from beginners to season veterans, can participate in building and be proud of.

The Skins workshop is sometimes the first contact participants have had with digital media and game design. This, in addition to the time constraint of three weeks, prevents us from making a triple-A game like “Grand Theft Auto,” which has 3D cut-scenes and many characters and environments. We instead encourage the students to be creative with story, style, game mechanics, and interactions, in order to create a finished game that maintains artistic and cultural integrity.

Applications to the 15 workshop spots are rolling in and come from a diverse range of individuals, from students and youth –as we usually get– to professors and to people in the tech industry, which is new and exciting! This will be the first time we have many more applicants than spaces available.

At today’s meeting we discussed flights and accommodations (all booked!) as well as developments in the curriculum. We are really going!

Kealaiwikuamoʻo, on behalf of Kanaeokana: The Kula Hawaiʻi Network, is partnering with Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace + Initiative to Indigenous Futures to put on He Au Hou: Telling Moʻolelo Through Video Games. This inaugural workshop brings together scholars, artists, technologists, and practitioners to plant seeds for the future, carving out space for Kānaka Maoli in the cyber world, and giving new mana to our moʻolelo.

Through He Au Hou, Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace + Initiative to Indigenous Futures will present a unique curriculum that begins with traditional storytelling and proceeds to teach participants how to tell a story in a very new way—through virtual environments and video games. With that foundation in place, the students then learn important skills for the production of video games and virtual environments, such as game design, art direction, 3D modeling and animation, sound, and computer programming. The workshops are taught by a mix of game-industry professionals, indigenous artists, and a core team of senior students from Concordia University in Montreal.

By the end of these free workshops, the students will have created a playable video game based on a Hawaiian moʻolelo, which can be further developed and polished after the workshop. Besides the important training mentioned above, some participants will be invited to facilitate future workshops and projects, ensuring that we create generational abundance in this virtual ʻāina the same way we do on our real-world ʻāina, with kaikuaʻana nurturing kaikaina, all for the benefit of the lāhui.

Aloha ʻāina and the drive to perpetuate our moʻolelo are the main criteria for workshop participants, so no technical experience is necessary. But if you know students who have backgrounds in the following, please encourage them to apply (https://tinyurl.com/heauhou-videogames):

• culturally grounded storytelling/writing/filmmaking
• graphic design/concept art
• 3d modeling/animation
• game/level design
• programming
• sound/music

When: July 17-Aug 4
Where: Hālau ʻĪnana (2482 S Beretania St).

He Au Hou is a series of free workshops on creative writing and art for this new au, this new era, we live in, but also to push the au, the current, in new directions. Hawaiians have long assimilated new technologies into our cultural practice and used them in ways that served Hawaiian purposes. He Au Hou continues these traditions of innovation and excellence fostered in us by our kūpuna, giving voice to the younger generations to tell our moʻolelo in new ways.