Brief
“In this weeklong project, you will work together to deconstruct the components of interaction and interactive experiences. Through a series of exercises, you will examine the features of the user, the object and the process of interaction. You will learn discipline specific terminology and be introduced to some of the principles of interaction design. Working in groups you will design, make, test and iterate the design of an interface for a one-button game. On the final day, you will present your game interface and explain your design choices and how they adhere to or subvert conventional interaction design principles. In your groups, you will document the week-long project using video.”
Analysing ‘Object’,’Subject’ and ‘Interaction’ in depth. This mind map is a breakdown of things that need to be considered while creating a design. It’s a helpful mind map to add to and look back to.
Analysing everyday object’s and their function from an ‘alien’ perspective as if they hadn’t ever been seen or used by us. We looked at scissor’s and a water bottle. I realised scissors can be a mirror reflection or a light reflector to create a signal.
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/185086030/
In this project me and Ailsa wanted to focus on motion sensor’s. We knew straight away we want to use masks and these are the ones we ended up creating.
The game’s interface has an under the water theme. We played with different icons and creatures to create the game. We also experimented with a few different games before finding the desired one. We played one game which killed the shark which was the opposite of what we wanted as the shark was supposed to eat the fish. We also tried to make the game colour sensitive but this didn’t work out because light would change and alter the colour in real life making it unresponsive which is why we chose to go with motion. Once we chose motion we had to figure out what we wanted to move so wended a game which would move the shark along to eat the fish.
An example of a game which helped us consider our concept. We liked the idea of something eating another thing so we decided to use a shark and some sea creatures instead of the taco and mouth. We also wanted to change the background and at the end we changed and amended our fish.
User testing and feedback
We changed a lot of error’s as we went along to make sure the game would function however we got some helpful feedback which helped make the game work as intended:
- Issue: Once the player was blind folded it was difficult for them to understand what was really happening in the game since it was visual. They only heard one noise ‘pop’ if the shark ate the fish and also when the poisonous fish killed the shark and reset all the points. Solution: We recorded two audio files, one to let the player know that they scored a point “You ate a fish” and one for when the poisonous fish kills the shark “you have lost all your points”.
- Issue: The game is difficult. Solution: We made the shark bigger so that it would be easier to catch fish and move around.
- Issue: The person didn’t understand what the game was actually about. Solution: We wrote out simple instructions for the players to read before they start the game.
- Issue: The game cliched and the shark went off the screen, the only way to retrieve it was to restart the game. Solution: We wrote some code to tell the shark if it touches a certain point, i.e anywhere that is the boarder of the page, the shark has to move back to the middle.
Final interface, masks and instructions
Game description
In the end we created a motion sensor game which allows two player to participate. One player shouts instructions and directions based on what they see on the laptop and the second player is blindfolded and has to move their whole body to make the shark eat the little fish. The score is based on how many fish have been eaten however if the shark touches the poisonous fish it loses all it’s points and the player has to start again with 0 points. The game lasts 60 seconds.
A screenshot of the final edited game code.
Reflection
I enjoyed this project as it was good to consider the basis of interfaces/Interactions and to tackle problem solving. I have used scratch before in high school but I had no idea it was possible to link it to movement. It was good to be working with code again and having our friends test the program and being able to implement the changes straight away. In the end I think we created a successful working, fun game. Since the player had to use their whole body and was blindfolded the benefits are that verbal communication is needed between the two players and some exercise is also involved. Overall I think me and Ailsa provided a fun response to the brief and we worked well as a team.
Marta Zofia Palacz 