Gravity Pods
http://www.wickedpissahgames.com/games/gravitypods/GravityPods.html
Gravity Pods is a vector-based physics shooter / puzzle. The objective is simple: shoot a projectile at a target. There are some barriers throughout each stage and naturally there is a way around those barriers. By strategically placing ‘Gravity Pods’ around the stage, you can bend the path your projectile takes in order to go around walls, down halls, curves back on itself etc. The trick is figuring out where to put them to lead the projectile to the target. The first levels are simple, but it gets progressively tougher as the courses get harder, and more elements come into play.
There are simply three controllable items in this game: moving the cannon up and down, changing the angle of the cannon on an axis-by axis degree and placement of the gravity pods.
Our project team have been deeply influenced by this game as the basic functionality of the game served the basis of what our team have aimed to achieve in our ’search and destroy’ project. Ultimately, our ’search and destroy’ project aims to encourage ‘the analyzing process’ and make it practical use for ’strategic planning’.
Similarly to how we play chess, we aim to use this type of strategic exercise to train our logical brain. Our team have found our inspiration from this game by the game’s ulitmate goal - to reach the beam through to the destination. This particular case is similar to our project concept but instead of having the physical elements in this game, there are only digital representations of the concept. Paths to exits in each area must be decided by all players, and the right combination of working technicians must be found in order to clear a route.
ReacTable
The reactable is a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on a luminous round table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.
The reactable intends to be:
- collaborative: several performers (locally or remotely)
- intuitive: zero manual, zero instructions
- sonically challenging and interesting
- learnable and masterable (even for children)
- suitable for novices (installations) and advanced electronic musicians (concerts)
The important feature that we found interesting is the player’s ability move around the ‘phicons’ to lead lazer beam to the direction you’ve intended; however this action has increased difficulty as this is a collaborative gameplay, which needs multiplayers to play the game.
We are exploring ways of both improving the quality and broadening the bandwith of interaction between people and digital information by allowing the players to ‘grasp & manipulate’ tangible objects and enabling players to work collaboratively to achieve a shared goal. We wish to introduce our collaborative game play to induce challenge and communication amongst players, which will ultimately be learnable and masterable for people of any age.
Khet
It’s the game that combines lasers with classic strategy. Players alternate turns moving Egyptian-themed pieces having two, one or no mirrored surfaces. All four types of pieces (pharaoh, obelisk, pyramid and djed column) can either move one square forward, back, left, right, or diagonal, or can stay in the same square and rotate by a quarter twist. Each turn ends by firing one of the lasers built into the board. The laser beam bounces from mirror to mirror; if the beam strikes a non-mirrored surface on any piece, it is immediately removed from play. The ultimate goal is to illuminate your opponent’s pharaoh, while shielding yours from harm!
We’ve aimed to create a Tangible User Interface by augmenting the real physical world by coupling digital information to everyday physical objects and environments. Our goal shares the vision of Ishii’s Tangible Bits as we attempt to bridge the gap between cyberspace and the physical environment by making digital information (bits) tangible.
We have in our ’search & destroy’ project, an interactive surfaces - we have a desktop as an active interface for players to play with. We have incorporated graspable objects with digital information that pertains to them, like the LED lights, and we use ambient media, which is predominantly the directional movement of lights for the background interfaces on our desktop interface.
In addition to being a fun and innovative strategy game, ‘Search and Desotry’ can also be used as an educational tool to teach geometry, physics, and many optics principles. ‘Search and destroy’ could be used in classrooms as an intriguing teaching demonstration that the students can directly interact with and enjoy.
Chip’s Challenge
Chip’s Challenge is a tile-based, puzzle video game. The design of the original game was done by Chuck Sommerville, who also made about a third of the levels. The basic plot of the game is that high-school nerd Chip has met Melinda The Mental Marvel in the school science laboratory and must navigate through Melinda’s “Clubhouse” (a series of increasingly difficult puzzles) in order to prove himself and gain membership to the very exclusive Bit Buster Club.
The game consists of a series of 148 two-dimensional levels which feature the player character, Nerdy Chip McCallahan, often called just Chip, and various game elements such as computer chips, buttons, locked doors and lethal monsters. Gameplay involves using arrow keys, directional pad or mouse to move Chip about each of the levels in turn, collecting enough chips to open the chip socket at the end of each level, get to the exit, and move onto the next level. Levels can be skipped by entering an appropriate four-letter non-case-sensitive password. Progress is not just measured in terms of completed levels but also in terms of the player’s score, which is a sum of the scores obtained on each level. Level scores for timed levels can be improved by completion in less time than previously, and scores on all levels can be improved by using fewer attempts to complete the level.While the same set of rules applies to each level, there are many different kinds of levels. Some are action-oriented and some are puzzle-oriented. Most but not all levels have a time limit. Types of levels include:
- Chip solving a block-pushing puzzle (similar to Sokoban) to clear a path to the level exit.
- Chip must actively dodge enemies (creatures which move in various ways) and make his way to the end.
- Chip must find his way through a maze. The maze can take various forms, such as a path across an icy surface with set points where he can make turns.
Our project team seek this classic puzzle game as an appropriate reference to our project concept as we share two key features. First, is we try to encourage players to ‘read’ the situation and come up with a ’strategy’ in order to clear the present stage/level. Secondly, there are tasks that must be done in specific orders to clear the stage, which is similar to our ’search and destory’ project as we require the players to collaborate and plan where they need to place their gravitional UFOs and who should ’stand/sit’ to open/close appropriate doors. Our shared goal is not to limit one specific solution but several combinations to pass each level; depending on the player’s imagination.
Reference List
Innovention Toys LLC. 2006. Khet: The Laser Game >> strategy at the speed of light. http://khet.com/ (Accessed August 13, 2007).
Lida, K. AGH Lynx Review - Chip’s Challenge. http://www.atarihq.com/reviews/lynx/chips_challenge.html (accessed August 13, 2007).
Music Technology Group. 2007. reactable.http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/ (Accessed August 13, 2007).Peters, K. 2007. Wicked Pissah Games. http://wickedpissahgames.com/?page_id=3 (accessed August 14, 2007).
Peters, K. 2007. Wicked Pissah Games. http://wickedpissahgames.com/?page_id=3 (accessed August 14, 2007).
