Game Mod was a workshop by Steph Thirion in Barcelona last month. The idea: take code for a simple game of Breakout, rendered in Processing, and mess it up so it looks like art. The surprise: participants weren’t programmers, and they got results in minutes rather than long hours.

Game Mod [Project page, descriptions, code, video]

The task of each participant was to create a mod of the game: dig into the code, change its looks and behaviours, search for unexpected results.

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Graphic design students, with almost no previous experience in coding, were pushed head first into object oriented programming. They discovered that in the complex system of a game program, change can lead to unexpected and beautiful results, and their lack of knowledge of the tool was more a creativity boost than it was a limitation.

Of course, the advantage here: there was source code to start with. And as I have to keep telling my students, starting with code examples is a good idea. (That’s why experienced coders do it.) This Breakout is a little different, in that balls bounce off all the walls in sort of an “everybody wins” version of the game — perfect for visualists.

Okay, non-coders — and coders — are you up to the challenge? You can download the code from the project page above and try it yourself. I like the idea of giving a time limit and not thinking about it too much. Maybe some instant sketching in Processing every day isn’t a bad idea.

Related posts:

• Processing Visual Notebook, Continued
• Processing for VJing and Performance, with Mother
• Pirates and Roasted Penguins: The Oddest Processing Game You’ll Play This Year
• glitchNES: make visuals with your Nintendo
• We are Hacks: Live Visual Lineup for the HOPE Hacker Conference, NYC Friday