Mock-Up

I now realize it's not too helpful in illustrating how the game would work...

On job roles

We have found a direction with the latest game idea (correct me if I'm wrong), so its time to think about the team roles. As far as I understand, we should have these set up by/on Monday or at least as soon as possible.

So, what are your thoughts on the subject?

~Olympia

Game Concepts

It looks like these are the main ideas that have popped up so far, vote for your fav ones then at the next meeting we can look into how do-able the top ones are.

Puzzle - maze
screwball...

drum kit, music stuff...

cam shooter, zombie shooter style thing...

portal view thing, fatal frame style...

gps based map discovery / puzzle....

- Donna, Iain, Olympia

just had another idea. this could be gps based depending on the scale. going on from the portal view thing, 'possessed objects'. maybe when you point the cam at the object a ghost / spirit / thing appears above it. this allows for the development of a story line.... is anyone else getting a buzz from this idea?

- Donna, Iain, Olympia (and co)

Availability

Thought it might be a good idea for us all to post our availability for the week so we can arrange meetings more easily. So here's mine...

Mon: After 3

Tue: free all day

Wed: between 10 and 2.30

Thurs: anytime except between 1-3

Fri: before 11, between 12 and 2, after 5

Working all weekend

Will be able to come to this weeks meeting though (fri 5th)

Crit week: only free monday & tuesday

-Donna

* * *

My schedule is unfortunately changing every week, but I'll make sure to update it for everyone.
For now its:

Mon: after 5
Tue: before 1, after 5
Wed: after 10, before 5.30
Thur: after 4
Fri: after 5

Sat & Sun: usually here, not this weekend though

~Olympia

* * *

Mon: all day
Tue: all day
Wed: from 10
Thurs: anytime except 1-3
Fri: mayhem! - 12-2 4/5 onwards

- Iain

* * *

Mon : all day
Tues : after 1
Wed : all day
Thurs : after 11
Fri : After 3

Im here every weekend.

- Mark

***

Mon: after 4

Thurs: after 11

Frid: after 3

- Suzanne

***

Tues: All day

Web: All day

Thur: 10-11, 1-2, after 4

Friday: Any time except between 2 - 3

Kenneth

I have had a couple of ideas for the AR, but nothing to extreme as I didn't know what our limitations would be.

1. A interactive puzzle game - For this I had the idea that we can set up a small area with obstacles (that can be moved to make the puzzle easier or more difficult) to which shapes can be placed around. There is a starting area and a finish line essentially. The idea is to place shapes around a grid from the start to the finish, once done the starting shape is a character of some sort which follows the shapes (most likely to be arrows), the character follows these to the finish line.

2. Twister with a twist - I was thinking that we could get a Twister game mat, and in each circle there is a shape, you essentially play the game of Twister but as a body part fills the shape a peculiar sound is played. Thought this would be good as it brings an old game and gives it a modern feel. Can play around with the idea and see what happens.

3. Going with idea of the drum sounds that we were shown, I like the idea of trying to make it more of a full band. Guitars, drums, and bass.

4. As shown with the zombie shooter, is there anyway we can come up with other concepts involving this sort of thing. For example, is it possible to make a racing game or (I am not a fan of football) but have like a football pitch with plays and interacts with two controllers?

That is all I can really think of at the moment, but I will have a thought for other ideas.

James

Stuff

For those who wanted to take a look at my design document, here it is.
Artwork can be found here and here. More artwork here.


Feel free to edit this post and add your own links. I think it'd be nice to have everyone's design documents, artwork, past projects etc in one place for reference.

~Olympia

Just a thought

I dunno if its doable at our level, but I was also thinking of a full art installation, essentially a room with different AR markers around to generate imaginary objects that you can only see through a portable device screen (like in the zombie shooter).

Imagine an adventure game like Fatal Frame, only you can actually walk into the room and interact with things in real time. Being able to see supernatural elements and ghosts through the screen only (like a real life Camera Obscura) would make for a great horror experience.

Take a look here (0:48) to see what I mean.

Again, that's just an idea. Being students and poor, I'm not sure if we can actually do anything like this but its fun to think about.

~Olympia

making it our own.

Yup. So I presume you’ve done if not loads, some research into this strange, magic thing called augmented reality, I’ve got some more nice tutorials, but most need adobe flex, or flash builder, or for you to be a master in action script. To make the interactive software I made before there was loads of tweaking, rework and amending of a augmented reality cs4 template. Which is pretty easy actually to edit. All we need is something to replace another. So if you can think of it like this


Person> Square Marker > Webcam > Computer > monitor > Insert what you want here > Computer > Monitor > Person…


I hope that makes sense.. and if it doesn’t, then your not playing enough pokemon.
Ive gone and uploaded the file to mediafire


Heres the link:


http://www.mediafire.com/?tke5d5vxv5w


I don’t want to sound big headed, but I don’t think I can explain how it works (the fla) over the interwebs, so next time we get together, ill show you how it works.
but simply. The fla, has nothing. The .fla is only existant to export it as a .swf.
so searching the .fla for things will be pointless… theres no code or anything, just 4 sounds…


ahhh cant explain but the action script files target the .fla so you need to open the .as’s to edit on what you wanna do.. makes no sense, but ill show you.
For example, if you want a 3d model youd open a new .as and import the model into there, like an image into html, then target the .fla to export it into a viewable way


And that’s the meaning of life.


Matt.

Antidote to the couch potato...

I've been having a look at some of the existing AR games for iphone etc. and it seems like pretty much all of them involve the user having to move around in some way so we could maybe try to have that as a part of our theme, fitting in nicely with the suggested themes.

The graphics are totally kak for a lot of them but maybe this is because its only recently taking off?

Anyway I had a look at "Invizimals" and "Ghostwire" among others which involve using the iphone as a tracking device with "compass and accelerometer". I have no idea if we would be able to do anything remotely like this but it's just an idea to get people off their asses and moving about.

Also, if incorporating augmented reality into something like Foursquare is possible, would we be able to do anything like that on a smaller scale?

Sorry if this is all very far fetched or doesn't make sense, I've been working on an animation for a few hours straight now and I'm going a bit insane.

-Donna

Some interesting reading

Just to make sure we've covered the basics, here's the Wikipedia article on augmented reality and a tutorial in Flash CS4, for some insight into the design process and the code.


On a different note, I'm personally still very interested in implementing some narrative in the project. It doesn't have to be a story, per se. Nor something completely vague and artsy. There are many possibilities. Here's an example of experimental storytelling using symbolic language:"a series of web-based artworks that mix the personal lives of the authors and political and social commentary with the mythical texts of the Bible."
For educational purposes, here's some thoughts on games, interactive experiences, their limitations and their potential, from the same authors.

~Olympia

AR Zombie Shooter

Hologaphy

not totally relevant but its a pretty cool concept all the same...

- Kenneth

Thoughts on things

Does this look like anything to any one? Just a thought! it came from this:



- Iain

The Blog has Begun...

Please post all your Ideas here so everyone can keep up to date.....

and if anyone wants to change the css, feel free ^_^

http://yossarianj.blogspot.com/ <--- My blog, has some of the art work from last semester on it, if your intrested