Week 10 Assignment
Link to Assignment
Concept
For this project, I worked with what we learned about creating autonomous agents and used the vehicles class that we made in class to configure a basic game. The goal of the game is to heard all of the triangles into the boundaries of the circle.
Mechanics
The mechanics are rather simple. Essentially, the triangles repel the mouse when it is within a certain distance of them. However, they are attracted to the center of the on-screen circle when within a certain distance. Thus, while the triangles start with their own random acceleration, the user can use the mouse to direct their movement and coax them into the circle.
Improvements
Some things that I’d like to further examine with this project is exchanging the shapes for simple images (such as sheep or other animals that the user is required to heard together). Additionally, I’d like to add collision detection between the circle and the vehicle objects so there is somehow an on-screen reaction when a triangle is successfully captured.
Additionally, to make it feel more like a game, I could add an on-screen progress counter to countdown how many objects are left to be captured. Or, I could have the screen constantly producing objects and the user wins based on how many they successfully capture within a certain amount of time.
Overall, however, I like how the vehicles maneuver the screen as if they are alive to some extent. It gives the feel of herding animals on a farm or something.