Teamwork Makes the Music Work!
The purpose of this project is to create teamwork and collaboration between the users. Creating teamwork by giving a goal or purpose for users is a good way of creating engagement between people. The good way of creating a common goal for people is through a multiplayer videogame that requires coordination between people. Using a game also helps to create engagement that can last long term because the game is different depending on who you played with. This insight was observed while analyzing ‘Moon Quest’ by Pen Porter which is a videogame that is has procedurally generated levels.
To create collaboration and teamwork that is consistent and can be measured, our project will be based on the Rhythm game genre. As for the input of the game, we decided that the input will be a drum and a drumstick since most people understand that a way to use a drum is by hitting it. There will be three different drums which are associated with the primary colors. The users know when to hit the drum because the circles will approach one side of the screen and should hit the drum when the circle overlaps with the outline of the circle. Also, the circles will be colored, so the users know which drums to hit. To make it more challenging and add more interaction between the two users, the circles will also be colored purple, orange, and green, which are a mixture of the primary colors. When one of these colors appears, the users will have to hit two of the drums at the same time.
The first step would be to create the game using Processing. I would have to learn how to code the game or at least base the game from a template online. After creating the game in Processing, then the input from Arduino would have to be connected to Processing so that the rhythm aspect of the game would work. After this works, the drums would be built using the sensors and they would be connected to the Arduino. The programming would be the most time consuming part since there are many aspects of the game, such as creating menus, adding music, and making sure there isn’t any delay between the input and the output on Processing.
My research inspired to create a game because after reading the book by Ernest Edmonds, I thought about how to create engagement with the user, and especially sustaining the engagement over a long period of time. Games usually are able to meet all the different types of engagement defined by Ernest Edmonds. This project is special because it’s fun and brings collaboration between people. Also, you can learn about color combinations as well! This project aligns with my definition of interaction because my definition of interaction is the same as Dynamic-Interactive (Varying). This project meets this definition because the interaction with the user is different every time because you’re playing it with someone else. If it was a single player game, then the game wouldn’t meet my definition of interaction. Similar games already exist like Taiku no Tatsujin, which is a rhythm game that uses a drum. However, Taiku no Tatsujin is a single player game and is soley focused on the rhythm aspect of the game. My project is focusing on the teamwork and collaboration between users while playing this game. We don’t have a specific audience, but people who like working together and playing games would be interested in this project. After successful completion, this project could add additional aspects of teamwork and difficulty between the users, which would challenge two peoples coordination even more. Subsequent projects could build upon this project by changing the type of interaction. Instead of having drums, it could be a mat with colors or picking up colored shapes. The interaction can change while keeping the same goal of the project, which is to create teamwork.