Author: Malika Wang

U-MAZE, at first named E-MAZE, is basically a game where the player controls a ball to roll around in the maze and color the floor it passes. The original design was just like a game app on the phone where the ball colors the floor and when all of the floors are colored, you win. During the first discussion session, we were inspired to make the background floor into the image of the player. Hence the new name, U-MAZE. This may increase the interactivity of the game and make solving the maze into a process of self-recognition.

Nathan and I couldn’t decide at first what to use as the input (the Arduino part). So we did the user test session entirely on the computer, testing the Processing part. We got two repetitive valid suggestions. First of all, the color of the ball should stand out from the background image so that the player wouldn’t lose track of the ball. Secondly, instruction should be provided to tell the player that they are expected to click the mouse to take a selfie at the beginning of the game.

After the user test session, we made changes accordingly. For the first one, we decided to make the ball change its color smoothly like one of the recitation homework asked us to do with a bubble. The second one was trickier. Our game takes a selfie of the player at the beginning of the game and makes it the background of our game. If we add instruction in the Processing window, the instruction will be screenshot as well, making the background “ugly”. Finally, we came up with the idea of adding a sound instruction, literally telling the player when to do what. This plan actually proved to be popular in the final presentation.

When deciding what to use as the input, Nathan and I took three valid attempts. The first one was the six-axis accelerometer and compass, which turned out to be too tricky to serve as a simple UP-DOWN-LEFT-RIGHT input. The second one was the joystick. It kinda explains itself so I won’t introduce it here. The third one was this: 

the box with a cross-road that each end has a pressure sensor detecting the movement of the dice rolling in it. We designed it in that it resembled the idea of a ball rolling in a maze. But the pressure sensors were not sensitive enough to detect a slight hit by the rolling dice. We had to give it up and went with the obvious choice – the joystick. We thought it might be too easy and therefore not fun to play with, but the result turned out to be good. Players said that the joystick was a self-explanatory input and not confusing, which is key to interactive projects. 

We did make some modification to the joystick though. We made a “handle” or a “station” for the player to better get a hold on the joystick.

We added more maps of mazes to the game before the final presentation so that each time the game restarts, the maze will not be the same as the one before.

Here is a video of me playing the game.

This is my last semester at NYU Shanghai. I don’t regret taking this course, even though the workload was kinda big. I love coding and programming and writing games. It is such a proud moment when someone plays my game and “wow”s. I do hope that I can continue programming. It perfects my mind as well as makes it relax. Many thanks to my partner Nathan, who listened to my nonsense rambling when coding. Many thanks to my Professor Young and Eric and Christian who helped us in the process of our project. We couldn’t do it without your help. 

During this week’s recitation, I focused on realizing the design for my final project with Nathan. We want to create an effect of revealing a photo by rolling the ball across certain paths. To do that, we need to create a PGraphics that layers upon the camera image. Eric taught me how to draw a PGraphics. 

However, when I tried it on my own later during the weekend, I found that once a PGraphics is drawn, it cannot be modified. I still can’t make happen the effect that Nathan and I wanted. So we decided to use a static photo as background. But what I learnt from this recitation was exciting. Even though I probably won’t use it for my final project, I believe it may come of use someday.

Below is my code.

 

My project See? uses three potentiometers to control three attributes. Analog input A0 controls the size of the viewing window. Analog inputs A1 and A2 control the x and y position of the window respectively. I ran into some problem with the camera not showing the image so I turned to Young for help. He pointed out that somehow the size of the camera had to be 640*480 for it to work. Here is the video of the project:

Here is my code for Processing:

 

The technology was used in this project so that I could control the viewing of the portrait with the potentiometers in the Arduino. As is stated in Computer Vision for Artist and Designers, ever since the time when computer
vision technologies were not limited to military and law­-enforcement purposes, there has been increasing “incorporation of computer vision techniques into the design vocabularies of novel artworks, games, home automation systems, and other areas.” Even “student programmers” like me may have access to this technology. As a beginner in this field, I found Arduino and Processing to be a convenient set of tools to create technology-based interactive arts. It not only makes “Art” approachable but also makes it more fun by being interactive.

Four group members’ projects

Citlaly’s Ball of Confusion

Citlaly and her partner design their project to have the aesthetic settings of the Super Mario and the main purpose of raising awareness towards different challenges happening worldwide. The character that the player controls in the game will be a ball, which is the symbol of being genderless and raceless. The player controls the ball by stomping or slightly jumping on a platform which has a pressure sensor below it. What’s different from the Super Mario is that in this game, the player will be collecting the little “bad guys” instead of avoiding them or killing them and the end of this game will be “world peace”. 

I really like the idea of keeping people entertained with a nostalgic game and in the meanwhile educate the players on serious issues. Citlaly’s original idea was to make some pop-ups each time the player catches the “bad guy” that represents an issue in the world. Jennifer pointed out that this is a bit distracting and suggested to put all the pop-up information at the end of the game when the player reaches “world peace”. I am mainly worried about whether the pressure sensor could tell between a stomp and a jump. Also, since I wrote a simple Mario Processing game last semester, I sent my codes to Citlaly, hoping to help with the coding part.

Caren’s Blurred Picture Game

The purpose of Caren’s game is to test the players’ common knowledge on the famous stuff, including famous people, places, and objects. It is a two-player game. At first, the picture will be very pixelated and gradually becoming clearer. There will be three choices for each picture. All of them will be the names of the person or place or object in the picture. And each player will have three buttons. 

This project is highly related to what we have learnt in class. I was concerned when I didn’t know that the choices were names of the thing in the picture. I thought that if the choices were also pictures, the players could figure out which one was correct simply based on the color.

Jennifer’s Labyrinth Game

This project aims to recreate the famous Greek mythology where the hero wants to escape from a maze and avoid the monster whereas the monster wants to capture the hero. The game is simple but I really like it. I expressed my concern about how the monster could just find the exit of the maze and wait there for the hero to come. I suggested making the game first-person perspective to make it fairer and more complex. But I know the coding will be very hard. Also, during the class, Jennifer’s partner mentioned that the roads in the maze will not be straight. So I am curious to see their method of input. I look forward to playing this game a lot.

Roger’s Game (Sorry I didn’t catch the name of this project)

The highlight of Roger’s game is that the player controls the character by moving both their hands. He will use two light sensors and the player will be wearing a source of light on the hands. The light sensors detect the brightness they receive and convert the data into distances. Roger’s idea was to make the player’s left hand control the character moving left or right and the right hand control moving forward or backward. I am concerned that the player will be confused if the two hands are moving both vertically. I look forward to seeing how the input of this game will turn out to be.

Feedback on my project

I told the group that I had trouble deciding to use what as the input of my project. They offered me a lot of suggestions such as Joy Stick, simple buttons or some sensors. I think it might be more fun to use certain sensors. Also, Caren suggested adding some sound effects when the ball moves or hits the wall. We will add this to our project for sure. During the class, I was inspired to take a photo of the player beforehand and make it the hidden “floor” of the map waiting to be revealed by the ball. I think this will surely make the game more fun.

Nathan and I referred to our old definition of interaction first and hoped to be inspired with new ideas. During our midterm project, we agreed that something interactive was either a recreational project (a game) or a helpful project intended for a specific group of audience. And continuingly, we want to create a game. Therefore, our target audience is everybody with some free time at hand and seeking a little bit of fun. After the researches I did for this final project, I put my emphasis on the ‘alternate’ part. To build this characteristic into a game, we decided to make the game choose its own level of hardness depending on the time the player spends on solving the easiest level. This game gives a maze-like map and within it is a ball. The floor of the map will be marked with cubes. The player uses a handle that controls the moving direction of the ball. When a rolling command is made by the player, the ball will roll towards that direction and only stop when hitting the wall of the maze or the barriers in the maze. The cubes rolled by the ball will be marked with a color. To win this game, a player should color all the cubes on the floor, which means that every cube should be rolled by the ball at least once.

Within the first week, we will focus on design several mazes that have a different level of hardness and the programming part of the project. This is to make the game more interactive in that it can give the players different mazes depending on the time they spend on finishing the easiest one. The week after that, we will search for something to serve as the handle in our project and run some test for this project, and if time allows, build a real maze (the easiest one) with a moving ball in it just to make the game more fun.

The research I did inspired me to add the ‘different level of hardness’ into the game. Like the Chatty Coasters that listen for silences in conversation and insert provocative questions into them, our project will give you the challenge that is worthy of your talent. It takes the time you spend on the easiest maze as the feedback and choose ‘your level’ of the game for you. After successful completion, our project may attract many players in an e-game store.