Interactive Prototype II - Statement of Delivery

Interactive Prototype II – Statement of Delivery

Concept Prototype

The game application concept that is being tested is a mashup of two classic games, Minesweeper and Dots. 2 Players take turns connecting two adjacent dots with horizontal or vertical lines to form boxes with lines on 4 sides. When a player claims a box, the corresponding square in the mine grid is revealed, which can be numbers (that give points, and correspondingly reveal the number of mines in adjacent squares), or mines, which they lose points upon revealing. Players click dots using a mouse to create the lines, or can alternatively use the WASD to select a particular boxed area, and then the arrow keys to select a particular side of the box (top, left, bottom, right) to draw a line.

Visit my blog for more details on game rules, prototype testing, and play an early prototype of the game yourself at http://jasonh-deco2300.blogspot.com.au.

Form of Prototype

The prototype is a combination of a digital game with physical inputs. The digital part of the game, which is mostly the game board, and score board, is coded in Actionscript 3 (Flash) and played on PC. The physical inputs are controlled using aluminium foil and Blu-tack on a square piece of cardboard, with 4 central inputs for box selection, and 4 outer inputs for edge selection. MakeyMakey allows interfacing between the controller and the game by use of wires and alligator clips, and connecting to the PC via USB. MakeyMakey is special in that it allows almost anything that conducts even slightly to be turned into a physical input.

The MakeyMakey interfacing chip and connecting wires are neatly stored in the box below the square piece of cardboard.

Figure 1: Screenshot of Mines Between the Lines (MBTL) v1.4 with full keyboard interaction and box selection pointer.

Figures 2-3: Photo of physical input controller.

On the physical input controller, the central inputs correspond to the box selecting pointer, controlled by the WASD keys, the outer inputs correspond to the sides of the box that can be placed, controlled by the arrow keys. Another piece of aluminium foil (which can be worn as a ring) is used as the earth controller wire to allow MakeyMakey to create a circuit and send the input to the prototype on-screen.

Purpose of Prototype

The purpose of this prototype is to further explore different ways to interact with the game, other than the standard keyboard and mouse inputs. MakeyMakey was an ideal experimental ground for testing other physical inputs, as almost anything wired to the MakeyMakey can be used as a “button” controllable by the player.

Testing and Feedback

For testing, users will play through a game on a 5x5 dotted grid using physical inputs to control the selection of dots. They will additionally will able to play the game using mouse input (as in Prototype I), as the prototype supports both inputs concurrently.

For feedback, it will be provided through a combination of verbal and written feedback. Participants will be asked to write down answers to the following questions:

1. How does using keyboard keys via physical inputs feel compared to using mouse input?

2. What do you think of having separate controls for selecting a box, and selecting a side of a box (a line)?

3. How suitable are the positions of the controls relative to each other? (box selection in middle, edge selection on the edges)

4. How much do you feel like you are “placing” a line on screen by correspondingly placing a metal bar onto the physical inputs (on the edges)

5. Do you have any more suggestions to make box selection (central physical inputs) more prominent?

6. Do you have any queries about the game rules, or strategy? (more relevant to Prototype I)

7. Any other questions or comments?

Decisions Made

As in Prototype I, features had to be excluded due to limitations of what I could code in Actionscript in time to test as a prototype. These included the implementation of a flagging option, as the dilemma of capturing two boxes at the same time in a single turn, when one box awarded points and the other a mine (lost points), was to be remedied by the ability to flag a square beforehand, and not suffer the penalty for uncovering a box with a mine. Another feature included the ability to reset/restart the game. Extra physical inputs for these features would not have been reasonably difficult to implement, however the Actionscript programming for these features was not implemented in time.

I made a decision to focus on the basic moves of placing a line betweeny two adjacent dots and creating boxes with these lines. In Prototype I, I implemented controlling of the game using mouse input. MakeyMakey does allow for mouse inputs (it has the ability to track mouse movement in 4 directions as well as left and right clicks), however my Actionscript prototype would be fiddly to control with MakeyMakey, as mouse input requires precise clicking of dots on thescreen. For Prototype II, I fully implemented keyboard interaction. I decided that the best way was to split interactions between choosing a “box” in a 4 dot region and choosing two dots to place a line between. I received a helpful piece of feedback during Prototype I testing that instead of selecting two dots, I should select the line between two dots directly. These lines corresponded to the 4 sides of a box.

I originally had the box selection as the arrow keys, and the edge selection as WASD keys, however I swapped the controls, as wiring up the MakeyMakey was more convenient with the box selection as the arrow keys as they required alligator clips to work properly. The WASD keys used thin metal wires instead.