The next 10 weeks!

So for the start of the new quarter, we made a document laying out what we need to accomplish. This document is called a sprint. A sprint is basically a detailed list of things a team needs to complete to meet their deadline.

This is a snapshot of my team's sprint!

I know it looks crazy but it's what we need to stay on track with our project!

To explain the above document...

Basically we are going to be concentrating on building our second game while also making the physical installation to show that game off. This document is a much needed element to creating a game with a team, even if it's only three people.

Stay tuned! 

Platform Art

So I was in charge of making the platform logo and art style. For the time being I decided to make a simple typographic logo for our Oasis platform.

I wanted it to be simple and elegant, having the curve along the bottom represents that it is based around washing your hands or the fluid nature of water that it is essential to the hand washing process.

For the body text if you will, I decided to use the same font from the logo - Kozuka Gothic Pro. I wanted the simple microsoft windows-esque approach. But I also wanted to give the platform personality. I designed the intro to the final playtest with that in mind.

Hopefully there will be a playable version available in this blog in the near future!

Game Ideas and Updates

Since the time we started working on the game, Run!, we have come up with two more game ideas and tinkered with our first.

All three games will now have an animal and nature theme, to keep the characters and game gender neutral. So everyone can enjoy them!

Game one will now be a rabbit getting chased by a bird. Yes they have names, but I have forgotten them.

Game two will involve the player washing their hands to help pull a cute little monkey up the screen to escape the enemy venus fly trap below. 

Game three will consist of the player washing their hands quickly to shake a tree that has an enemy trying to rest on top of it. (Something of that nature)

Aside from the game ideas, we have also set our user interactivity with the game to work with three scenarios for washing hands. All other steps people take would probably mean they aren't trying to play the game.

Updated Game Ideas

So a lot has changed since the last post. We are now going with a game called Run! 

This is a 2D sidescroller, a very simple game. Basically, there is the main character that you control and an enemy ai chasing him. The goal is to keep running left away from the enemy until you escape his reach. The faster you wash your hands, the faster your character will run!

This level is pretty much one large level. It's 4200px wide and 700 in height. There will be parallaxing background images to provide a more dynamic environment. Here's a chart showing the sizes that each background element will be.

The reason we switched from a left/right control to a control based off your hand washing speed is because it's a more natural movement while also making the user wash their hands more extensively. I'll update more later!

Oasis: Game Ideas

Going into game ideas, we knew that any game that is played via washing hands should very simple for the user.

With this is in mind, we decide to make the controls to the game very minimal. We chose to try out left and right movement as the core mechanic at first. This would require the user to wash their hands while slightly move their hands from left and right within the sink to play the game.

Based on these controls, the first game we started playtesting was a puzzle game, basically a Labyrinth. It would show a wooden labyrinth puzzle on the screen and the player's goal is to rotate the puzzle left and right, guiding the metal ball to the bottom of puzzle to win. A wireframe example is shown to the right.

Left and right controls are simple and allow the user to wash their hands at any speed they want.

...but we ended up changing the controls for the installation to be the speed at which the person washes their hands. In other words, the Leap Motion will pick up how fast your hands are moving and based on that, it will affect the mechanics of the game.

Creating the Platform

This is is my first post of many having to do with a new platform for video games that me and some friends are working on for our Senior project at SCAD Atlanta.

My buddy Matt came up with the idea, "Wash Your Hands, Save the Princess." This was an idea for a video game played by washing your hands. This was an exciting idea and I was interested immediately.

We don't have a definite name for the system but for the time being it is called "Oasis."

Basically we are looking to create a kit that can be installed into bathrooms that have monitors or tv screens behind its mirrors behind sinks. (example to the right)

The first thing we looked into were the facts dealing with the CDC's hand washing guidelines to ensure that our system finds a way to make people wash their hands the correct way, making the world a cleaner place.

I believe that with Health backing us, this could turn into something really big. I will update our progress here, so stay tuned!