Final Project Essay – Aircraft War
A. PROJECT STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
The final project we would like to create is an aircraft shooting game called Aircraft War, in which the user controls the aircraft to attack other enemies to reach a high score or to finish a specific task. We would like to create a strong sense of participation for the players who enjoy this kind of airspace, shooting themed game and all users who just would like enjoy the thrill of destoying and winning.
Preparatory Research:
Sky Force Reloaded
This is a popular game that runs across plalforms from PC, mobile devices, Nintendo Switch and so on. Also, this is the game we would like to re-create. But the flaw of this game is that, though is a thrilling flying and shooting game, the players are always controlling the game by joystick, button or keyboard. Here, another research project enlightened us.
Kinect Flying Game
We would like to strengthen this experience by introducing a high level interaction. We would like to build our interaction on the level of all body. Which means that the user controlls the banking of the aircraft, shooting actions and other features by moving their body around. The fly lovers would always want to have an experience of flying, though we could not make it realistic, but still we try to improve their experience. This way of controlling adds fun and challenge in the game, which we believe would facilitate the gamers batter. Though Kinect and Leap Motion are banned, but we will try to figure a way out.
Besides, we would like to add some new elements to the game. Most of these shooting games are just composed of different levels for the users to pass. While we would like to add story to this game, so that the user does not only get an experience from the achievement made in the game but also viewing through a story. By doing so, we would like the game to be a kind of media that conveys some other emotions other than joy from the game itself, maybe sorrow, sad or relief, moving etc.
B. PROJECT PLAN
The plan goes parallel for me and Joseph. Joseph would try to write a story that fits the theme of this game, and prepare pictures, video and other forms of media. The preparation of the medias can last longer, but we would like to finsh the basic frame of the story by the end of next week. While on my side, I need to figure out a way as a substitution of Kinect. I need to check out the acclerometor, gadgeteer, distance sensors and see if some combination of these sensors can create a good user experience. This should also be finished by the end of next week. In the following week, we need to work together to finish the coding and fabrication process. We are going to help and cooperate, but basically I will be in charge of the coding part while he focuses on fabrication. Since we are going to consider the aesthetic value of our project, it also take some time to utilize and polish our project. In the last week, we are going to make some final adjustments to the project accoring to the feedback from the users and other new ideas.
C. CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
I would like to reclaim my definition of interaction again. A successful interaction should be continous, interesting, and strongly user involved. The most significant impact that the preparatory researches make is that, we need to give the users a continous and strong interaction experience. To make the interaction continous, we decided to make a game so that the user is constantly focusing on the input and output of the interaction. To make the game interesting, we tried to add different elements to the game. To make a stronger experience, we believe the way of controlling the game should be our whole body instead of just fingers and keys. It is these ideas that guide us to create a unique experiecnce that users cannot get from a similar game. The unique points we would like to realize are a improved, strongly user involved, body controlled game experience and the story mode in this game, which can bring the users some other feelings and emotions while playing the game. If this project works successfully, more improvement can be made such as using a better system of motion capture or using some relatively advanced game engine (like Unity) to add other complicated features and cool effects, so that the user experience improves in a deep and comprehensive way.