Week 6: Design

Kinect

Many games strive to create a level of immersion for players, however this often seems to hit a barrier of sorts when it comes to controllers. The fact that players are controlling things with a keyboard and mouse or a controller very easily creates a clear distinction between the player and the happenings of the game. I would hope that using a Kinect controller would remove this barrier, meaning that players perform the actions themselves (or at least something similar) to perform them in the game.

Unfortunately this provides a barrier to the game mechanics, meaning that characters in the game can only enact actions that the player can perform in their living room. With the player’s hand being the obvious limb of choice for controlling, I designed a game with the simple act of “flicking” in mind. What emerged was a fairly simple defence game, with a simple objective: defend yourself and your delicious picnic (including sandvich!) from the onslaught of various ants, spiders, birds and other annoying nature-things. The controls would be simple; swat, flick, and slap the nasty things away! And for the birds you have the obligatory wave-your-hands-like-a-retard to scare them away. Maybe if an ant or some other little critter manages to penetrate the player’s defences and get onto them, they would have to jump up and down freaking out and trying to swat it off them to remove the nuisance. The game could incorporate multi-player, with more than one person trying to defend the picnic rug. Much of the fun experience would most likely result from laughing at how silly people look when attempting this game.