Project Title
Aircraft War
Project Statement of Purpose
Basically, we want to make an entertaining game for the final project. This game would be an aircraft game, in which the primary mechanics is that the player can control an aircraft to attack the enemy aircraft. This is a video that we found when we did the research and it is about a normal aircraft game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLAIqHptY_g
However, since there are already some aircraft games like this existing, we are trying to add some improvement to this kind of game to make it more meaningful and interesting. The game would have two modes. One mode is the infinite mode, in which the player needs to control the aircraft and tries to stay alive as long as possible. And the score depends on how many enemy aircraft he crashes and how long he could stay alive. In this sense, this mode mainly focuses on the entertaining role of the game. The user can play this mode to just relax to pass the boring time. The other mode is a story mode. In this mode, the basic way of interaction is the same as the infinite mode. But different from the infinite mode, the player not only can have fun by attacking the enemies but also can enjoy the story that we provide. Thus, as for the story mode, it can reveal some important meanings that we want to tell the users. In other words, the game itself is like a media for us to tell a meaningful story to the users. Moreover, the difficulty of the story mode is actually decreasing instead of being harder and harder, which could give the user a sense of success because he can be stronger after passing a level. All in all, this game can not only provide the user with an entertaining role but also tell the user a meaningful way so that they can enjoy the game itself as well as the story. And the users can play this game to pass the boring time, and if they play the story mode, they can also relax by experiencing a meaningful and interesting story.
Project Plan
For the first step, I think we can come up with a story that can be told vividly by this game. A suitable story is really important for our project because if the story is nor suitable for the game, the players cannot fully engage in the atmosphere that we want to create. Besides, a good story can not only resonate with the player but also can attract the user to continuously play the game. After creating the story, the next step is to consider how to express the story by this game. For example, what kind of background music we can use to reinforce the emotion of the story? How to show the story visually to the user? Using video, or images, or playing the game with the sound of telling the story? We need to hold up these questions and ask ourselves when we make the game. Since we just learned how to interact with videos and images by Processing, it brought me many ideas about expressing the story that I can apply to our project. The third step is to think about how the users can interact with the game. In other words, it’s to think about the structure of the game. I think we would do this step through two aspects. One is to consider the user experience. According to Igoe and O’sullivan’s text, there is a figure about how the computer sees humans. This figure only contains three parts, which are a finger, two ears, and one eye. This figure implies how people usually interact with computers. In my opinion, if we can only use fingers to interact with a project, it would be too limited and boring. Thus, the user experience is really significant for a successful interactive project. And this is also what we need to consider for our final project. According to our thoughts now, we want to simulate the experience of driving a plane as a part of user experience. The other aspect is the game itself. As there are already a lot of similar aircraft games existing, if we just copy one without any innovation, our project would be meaningless. Hence, we need to make some changes to make this game more interesting and meaningful. For example, the story mode is one of the innovations we have on this project. The fourth step is to try to make the game by Processing and complete the user experience by Arduino. After having a prototype of the game, we can have some user tests and gain some feedback to make our game better. And this is probably our last step.
Context and Significance
As I mentioned above, the user experience should not be limited by finger, eyes, and ears. My preparatory research also inspires me a lot.
https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/virtual-reality-using-arduino
This project requires the user to wear a glove made by Arduino. And the user can interact with the Processing via the glove and the output totally depends on the movement of his hand and arm. It breaks the limitation of fingers. Thus, I also came up with some ideas that users can use their feet and a joystick to control the plane. I think it can give them a sense that they are actually sitting in an aircraft and control it. Also, the way of simulating the real driving experience can attract the user to continuously play this game and can make people engage in the plot of the story. Therefore, it aligns with my definition of interaction that interaction is a cyclic process. If we can successfully make it, it would be a special aircraft game. By the way, we are actually recreating an existing game. The interactive parts of the common aircraft games are mostly using the keyboard or a mouse to control the aircraft. So the way of interaction is our first innovation. Moreover, the story mode is another innovation. In this way, the users can enjoy the feeling of killing enemies as well as the experience of listening to an interesting story. And the users can also play the infinite mode to try to get a high score and compete with other players.