MoSCoW Requirments
As I said in my last blog post I was going to try and work out some Requirements, and brake them down into MoSCoW or Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Would Have. Heres a first go at breaking them down, and no doubt I will refine them as time goes on.
Must Have
- Motion Tracking With Webcam
- User/Fog Collision detection and reaction
- Timer
- Percentage Counter
- Basic Visual Design
Should Have
- Start/Finish Pages
- Decent Looking Visual Design
- CO2 increase based on real Stats
Could Have
- Accurate Reactions on fog object collision (force you hit object informs how fast it travels away)
- Factory/Animal Animations
Would Have
I think for this project I'm only going to aim to get the Must Haves done. If only got 6 or so weeks left I I've not even started writing the report for it. This leaves me with two tasks left to complete. Getting the fog objects to float on randomly and the percentage counter working accurately.
Poster Presentation Mark
Just got my poster presentation mark back. Got a 70, which is just the right side of the border for a 1st. So happy with that. I think I'm going to give up on flash development for the rest of the week. Going to wait to show of my Christmas work to the tutors, and talk to my flash developer friend about how to go about the next stage of the project (working out when a fog object is off the screen).
So until then I'm going to try and crack on with other uni work, as their is a fair bit to do. Also going to start prepping the final report for DMP. Going to try and work out what needs to go in it, then show this to Dan on Friday and get feedback. Then spend the weekend hopefully trying to have a bit of fun, as well as getting on with starting the report proper.
Effects of C02 on people, and how to visualise this in the game
My last post got me thinking about how to represent the user dieing. Lots of games have visual clues that a user is dieing/failing task etc, though I can mostly only think of first person shooters. (Pictures bellow) Some games have other methods, like guitar hero (as discussed in the last post) has a bar showing how well your doing, and if you fail you are boo'd of stage. In the burnout series of games, your car is shown to be getting more and more destroyed. In Grand Theft Auto the screen fades to black and white as the character is sprawled across the floor.
Here the player in doom is show to have ill health
Blood and dirt on the screen in Modern Warfare 2
Fading to black and white as you die in GTA IV
Since this is a common gaming technique I thought about what should happen in my game? Clearly the bleeding character or blood on the screen would not be suitable for my younger players. There is a lot of evidence of video games effecting children badly, and i certainly don't want to reduce my children to tears, just teach them something.
I also thought it important to make the game as realistic as possible. There's no point having fairies floating around telling you that you've died. I first tried looking into the effects of rising CO2 levels on humans, which is called Hypercapnia. This Thread on Google Answers (I didn't even know they had an answers system!) and the article on wikipedia contained lots of useful information. Ive listed some effects bellow:
- lowers the shivering threshold and increases core cooling rate
- Effects Diaphragmatic Function - Harder to breath, became tired easier
- Acidosis (Acid in the Blood) Serious and sometimes fatal
- Headache, Nausea and Visual Disturbances
- "In 1986, volcanic Lake Nyos erupted huge quantities of CO2, resulting in the deaths of approximately 1800 people and thousands of livestock up to 25 km away."
- flushed skin
- Extrasystoles
- muscle twitches
- hand flaps
- reduced neural activity
- raised blood pressure.
Studies also showed that these would only happen when CO2 was at 15,000 ppm, or 40 times the current levels, which gives me some suggestion of when these things should start taking place in the game.
During my research I discovered the article Does Easy Do It? Children, Games, and Learning By Seymour Papert, a living legend in computer science and learning. Lego even named the Mindstorms system after one of his books.
The article most talks about games aimed at learning, as opposed to informing which is the main aim of my game. Though the two are similar, there are differences (as far as i see it). There is some good advice to take from the article though, including this quote I'd like to share:
"Frankly, I think that it is downright immoral to trick children into learning and doing math when they think they are just playing an innocent game. To make the situation worse (as if anything can be worse than lying to children), the deception does not achieve any purpose, since cooperative learners who know what they are doing will learn far better than children who go mindlessly through the motions of learning."
All this has left me with an awful lot to think about, and a lot more to read. Hopefully I can start getting some solid ideas down on paper soon.
Post Christmas Catch Up
I guess I should do a bit of a catchup, as I have not posted for over a month. Last time you saw me I was preparing my prototype and poster for my Christmas presentation. Well that was all done and dusted on the 11th Dec, and I think it all went rather well. I'm still waiting for official feedback, but on the day I think everyone was impressed with the things I thought full. It was good to get everyone playing the game as well.
Since them Ive been finishing other coursework and having 3 weeks of to enjoy the snow and chill out a little. But now its official term time again Ive started working again. This morning I came up with what I hope will be the final design for my game, which is in much a similar to style to the prototype.
I really like it at the moment. It use's 3 photos taken by me (sky, background mountin and the bridge) one I found from stock.xchng, and one form a google image search I'm going to have to find again to reference properly. I guess I need to layout some plans for the next 2 weeks before lessons start again.
The rest of this week:
- Get feedback from a few people on this design (in the comments please)
- Start working out which sources of CO2 I want to use in the game.
- Find decent images for these sources, or get out and take some photos of them.
- design what the fog objects are going to look like
The week after:
- Get back into flash and get re-aquainted with my code
- plug in the new design elements
- Work out what is left to be done
- start doing it!
Ill hopefully be blogging weekly now so you can see my progress, I'm also going to start working on my report soon, so that should be a barrel of laughs.
Cheers.
Ealry Stage Poster
I've printed of some puts and started laying out my poster. Going to spend a few days working out what else needs to go on it before I start sticking things down. To be honest I probably wont get the glue out until Thursday night, to give me as long as possible to finalise my Ideas.
More Visual Design Sketches
Now that I know the premise of my game and most of the details, I can go about working up my ideas for the final UI and visual design. I still want it to take inspiration from the work I posted in my art direction posts on this blog, but this gives you an idea of the scenes in action. These where just quick sketches on scrap bits of paper, and I'll be drawing them up properly for my Poster Presentation on the 11th.
The two images above represent different aspects of the visuals of the game. On the left is an idea of the starting scene, and the UI that might be present. The Clock in the top right tells you how long you've lasted, and the counter in the top left tells you percentage of the screen covered by fog. As the game goes on this will increase, and decrease as you batter fog objects away.
The second image details some of the things that might appear as the game goes on. I imagine these popping up or walking onto the screen depending on what they are. It would be nice if I can get data on the amount of CO2 each item puts in the atmosphere, and then translate that accurately into the game, though that's a lot of maths, and Id rather work on the physics of the game itself. But yeah that's some ideas for now. I don't think I'll open Photoshop on these until after Christmas, but I'll do some more sketches beforehand for sure.
Tutoial Write Up – 20/11/09
Last Friday was our 3rd tutorial with Ben at the Pervasive Media Studio. The sessions are going really well, and I'm really pleased with how my project is developing. Its probably the module I'm happiest with at the moment.
Ive been working a lot on how my project would now run and work once its finished. Ive been doing a lot of thinking and sketching, and talking with Ben and my tutorial group. Bellow is a summary of progression I've made on the idea. Its just a simple list as I've got loads of work to do, and can't be bothered to write it up properly.
- The Game would be an Interactive Installation at @Bristol
- Aimed at 8-12 year olds
- Have to make it satisfying to the user
- Accessible to the Kids
- Give Visual Feedback
- Fading light
- Pop up Buildings
- Aim of the game is to fend of the end of the world by bashing away CO2
- The longer you play, the harder it gets
- "How long can you survive" kinda style
- Eventually the loser would always lose - highlighting Impact of CO2
- Convert Facts and figures into something more understandable
- kids wont care about %'s of CO2, but change this to years
- "You fended of the apocalypse for 21 years"
- "thanks to you, the planet will now survive until 2050"
- "your actions are equivalent to 5,000 less cars on Britain's roads"
- Make the target a superhero, can add your face into the game
- Makes it a bit more fun
- Game is also justified as its both active (jumping around) and educational (CO2 impact)
An extensive list I know. I also now have a list of action plans for the next two weeks. These are:
- Visual Design Sketches
- Continue work on my Prototype by trying to add mass to my blob
- Define out the scope a bit more, what I'm going to attempt to achieve, what the final product would be
- Bring all my work so far into a poster.
Re-thinking my Project
One of the key things that came out of yesterdays tutoiral, apart from the laundry list of deliverables I need to complete between now and my poster session was the reasons behind my project. Though the idea was cool, there wasnt a reason for the webcam asspect of it. It just felt a bit stuck on cos it was cool, which in reality it was, but I shouldnt mention that really.
During the tutorial Ben mentiond that maybe it could be a game. This is an idea I liked a lot. Children and to a certain extent adults wont want to use something where from the upfront you are ust learning about something. However learning though play is fun, as you dont realise your learning.
So, now I'm thinking the game will keep the same ideas, but now the object is to clear the screen of all the CO2 by waving it away. I can use real stats and figures to create levels, with each one being a diffrent city or time, each getting harder and harder. The last level could be a point in the future, which has a timer, but, you can never win. Thus highlighting the problem of rising CO2 levels.
I quite like this idea, but then again I liked all my othr ideas. So I've developed an action plan of steps to clarrify my idea.
- Focus group the idea and see what people come up with, and their feelings about my idea.
- Create some initial sketches of level ideas and UI
- Present these at the next tutorial.
Prototypeing my Prototype
One of the things that came out of my first tutorial meeting last week was what was needed for our prototypes. We are expected to show them off in December during our Poster Presentation. The idea is to complete the hardest part of your project first, which for me would be the web cam interaction element. I've always had a clear idea in my head about what my prototype was going to do and how it would look. So, to get this from my head onto paper/screen I decided to make a little animation...
Here, the crosshair represents the point of that the motion capture code I found will generate. The green squares represent Fog Objects. When the crosshair collides with a fog object, they bounce off in the other direction.
I think this is both the most important part, and the most tricky aspect of my project from a technical view at least, which is most likely how I am going get my project marked. So for my prototype I need:
- Capture motion of a user and transmit this to a single point on the screen
- Create randomly placed fog objects around the screen
- Detect collisions between the user and fog objects, and have them bounce of accordingly
If time permits I would also like to include:
- Having the fog objects float around randomly, as in a real fog
- be able to adjust number of fog objects, even if this is manually in the code
- have it working on a web interface, not just a flash environment
Creating this demo has given me a chance to define what I expect to create by December, and more importantly my first little reminder of flash in a few years. Its also shown my flash skills aren't the greatest, so I need to get on with some tutorials.
More Artistic Direction Inspiration
Just a quick update as work continues on my project, and the rest of my uni tasks. Have my first tutor meeting on Friday which should be good. Quite looking forward to it, as I have quite a few questions for Dan at this stage of the project.
Ive just discovered the work of Simon Page and in particular his posters for the International Year of Astronomy. I really like the old looking style, similar to the Mark Weaver work I've shared previously. The use of bold colours is really stunning as well, and something I would like to use in my project. The minimalism of his work is also striking, but I don't think that is something I would be able to include in my project.