None of us really know why we waited so long before running our multiple engine, 8 mini-game idea by Adam (our professor). Yes, Michelle (our other professor) had already cut us down from 10 – 12 mini-games to the 8 we came up with now. But really, we probably should have anticipated just what Adam was going to say.

The day was best summed up by Linzi on our team messageboard:

Good news: We submitted our project to ImagineRIT.
Bad news: We need to completely tear apart our idea.

Andy, Ira, and I met with Adam today and he made some really good points about our project. Basically, 8 games is way to many if we want them to be flawless and fun – so we’re back to 1 perfect game.

We should think about arcade games – games at their simple fundamentals that are time-tested fun. The idea he went off of was ‘Hot Potato’ as our 1 game that would work because it needs no explanation.

With ‘Hot Potato’ we went through a bunch of things that we could be passing that we wouldn’t want (water balloons, eggs, bombs) and words that correlated with them (splash, goo, explosions). Those led into user interactions, such as the water balloon pops if it hits the ground and the screen fills partially with water that slows down the movement of the people.

Then we got talking about combining ‘Hot Potato’ and ‘Tetris’ where 2 people are passing ‘puzzle pieces’ that morph mid-air trying to find the puzzle piece that will fit into their ‘lock’ – passing through level graphics.

He said our game could go two ways: an entertaining game; in which the game itself has to be flawless OR a message; where the message guides the game.

And so, back to the drawing board we went. Many doodles, weird diagrams, funny hats, and simple games later, here is where we ended up, summed up by Krista:

Our proposed game is a two-player camera installation piece primarily based on Breakout (sometimes called Blockbreaker). Users will each hold two glow sticks in front of them to act as their ‘paddle’. Point detection will be used to simulate digital paddle length and flexibility. By moving the glow sticks apart, the paddle will become taut and provide a hard surface for the ball to bounce off of. By moving the sticks together, the surface will sag, creating a space for the ball to fall into. When users quickly move the sticks apart again, the ball will whip back into gameplay (similar to a slingshot).

Users must work together to eliminate any obstacles around their goal. However, the player who actually gets the prize in the middle is deemed the winner, so the collaborative gameplay will quickly turn to competition in the game’s final moments.

Other notable features are that the ‘blocks’ will not stay static. They will actually spin around the prize as they are hit, adding more difficulty to the game. When the game is completed, a new theme will be loaded. This means that graphics (such as the ‘blocks’ and ‘ball’) are subject to change, adding more character and creativity to the game.

Research references/possible image sources: Breakout, Bubble Spinner, Rope example (holding a rope and moving the ends together), Zach’s point detection experiments

For homework, we all went back to our respective happy places to think of simple games that would grab the user and keep him or her interested for at least 4 minutes.