Week 4 - Video Prototype of Zoo Frenzy

Over the course of the last few weeks, I have been developing a mashup of two well known games - Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Tetris, called Zoo Frenzy. By taking key elements from both games, It was possible to remove the major problems from both games. By using the skills gained in the last few weeks, the following video was developed as a video prototype:

This video was designed as part of the Major Assessment and is the initial step through the evaluation process. After showing the video to the remainder of my DECO2300 Contact group, this short survey was conducted:

1.       Is the concept of the game easy to understand? Are there any features that do not make sense?

2.       Is the game fair? If not, what could be done to change this?

3.       If any aspect of the gameplay could be changed to enhance the overall game, what would be changed?

4.       If any aspect of the gameplay could be changed to enhance the overall game, what would be changed?

dHopefully, the answers gained from this evaluation will allow me to further develop the prototype. 

Video Editing

In week 3 of DECO2300, the process of video editing was discussed in greater detail. We went over what makes a video decent, how audio can affect a viewers impression of a video and different ways of ensuring that the audio and video are at the highest level of quality.

To begin the process, we were shown example videos to which we had to identify what was wrong with them. For example, in one of the videos the music was completely drowning out the speaker and in another, the lighting of the video was causing dark shades to block out everything of importance. After going into greater depth to discover ways to fix these videos, we were introduced to software in which video editing could be done - with the main software being Adobe PhotoShop.

From here, we were tasked with filming several short videos, after which we were required to edit them to the highest level possible using PhotoShop. This would be enhancing our skills for later on, as we are required to complete a video for our prototype assessment.

DECO2300 Week 2 Shenanigans

During the first contact of the week, we were shown more fundamental aspects of prototyping such as precision and evolution - aspects that are crucial to the prototyping process. Following this, we were tasked to select a common household appliance, something that we knew how to interact with, and change that interaction to something that could be associated with virtual reality. The object that I chose was the fridge - with the obvious interactions of buttons and pulling doors being changed to voice commands and gestures. 

The first practical of DECO2300 had us being introduced to the basics of the assessment that we would be facing. The lecture was initially a brief walk through of the Statement of Delivery and the assignment itself. This was followed by a walk-through of the games that we would be able to use for our assessment and these were split into 3 categories: Pencil & Paper, Board Games and arcade games. From here, the task was to select two games from each category and write down two defining features of that game.

For the Pencil & Paper games, we chose Hangman and Naughts & Crosses. For Hangman the two defining features were: the guessing of the word and the drawing of the stick figure. For Naughts and Crosses, the Naughts and Crosses themselves are a defining feature alongside the 9x9 grid. 

The board games that were decided were Snakes and Ladders and Battleships. For Snakes and Ladders, the element of chance and the Snakes/Ladders were the defining features and for Battleships the placing of the ships and choosing were to shoot were the features of choice. 

For the Arcade Games, Space Invaders and Minesweeper were the games to be chosen. The two features that were decided for Space Invaders were the time limit and the fact that the aliens would be moving towards the player. For Minesweeper, the key features were decided to be the mathematical aspect of the numbers around the mines and the mines themselves from which the game is named.

After this process was complete, the next task was to 'mash up' two games to form a completely new game. The games that were chosen to be fused were Twister and Minesweeper, from which MineTwister was born. MineTwister is essentially the game of Twister with the mines from Minesweeper placed on random spots to take out players. After the initial step, the 'Spinner' would place numbers on wherever the player had stepped to allow them to determine where the mines have been placed. 

The final activity in the practical was to think of an embarrassing event and make it even more embarrassing. From this, the event chosen was if a person was in a public environment and their phone/device were to start playing some form of audio loudly. To make this more embarrassing, we made the phone/device capable of detecting whether or not the place is public and if so, then the audio playing would be set at maximum volume and the audio would be locked for 15 seconds. We believed that any longer than that would just be annoying and that 15 seconds would be perfect for the maximum amount of embarrassment.