Category: Housekeeping

For my final sketch, I wanted to create something that resembled a game and allowed the user to create their own universe, and the fate of their universe would be dependent on the choices they made. I completed what I set out to do; the user enters and is told to enter their name and then directed to a blank universe where they use checkboxes to create planets and sliders to manipulate the radii of the planets. The possible fates of the universe include: getting consumed by a black hole, the universe exploding, getting taken over by aliens, environmental problems, problems with meteor showers, having tense relationships with aliens, unhappy inhabitants, and successfully creating a thriving planet. My biggest hope was to get the planets to hover in place because rather than view the universe from above in a circle, I wanted the view to be of the side (so that the planets are side by side). I didn’t plan on adding the ability to alter the planet’s radius, but I wanted the user to have more input in the creation of their universe. I originally had the idea of making the game 3D, but I did not like the way the p5js spheres looked because I didn’t want the lines of the sphere to appear and I preferred the look of 2D. I was disappointed that Openprocessing changed so that the gif library no longer worked because I had to replace my gifs with still images and the gifs added movement to the sketch. Overall, I’m happy with the way my sketch turned out; if I had more time I would add more questions to the quiz and make the scoring system more complex.

 

Final Sketch

For the final, I ended up creating pretty much what I had in mind.  While I was unsure if I wanted to use, p5.js or Processing, I went with p5.js, but that proved to be a little bit of an issue towards the end as I am more familiar with the random function in Processing over p5.js.  I wanted to create something a user could keep running in the background, say after a day or work or school.  Differently, I would have created more randomization of color especially for the “Partying” portion.

The goal for my project was to create an interactive narrative inspired by the video game “Until Dawn”, where the player makes choices that effect the outcome of the character. I wanted to utilize p5.scenemanager to take the user on a journey through different scenes, and to sound effects to certain scenes to enhance the experience. Initially, I wasn’t able to get p5.scenemanager to work, but I ended up figuring out what the problem was. The syntax for scenemanager is a little tricky, but once I was able to understand it, creating the narrative became a little easier. I was able to find images that help the user to visualize the story that I wanted to tell, and I also found background music and sound effects that fit the aesthetic of the images and the story.

“The Dark Mansion” is a fun narrative that takes the user on a journey throughout the interior of a mysterious mansion. The user has to avoid being killed by a dangerous man with an ax, while having to make a few important decisions so make it out alive.

I set out to make an interactive narrative with a variety of endings to the game, and that’s exactly what I ended up with. The narrative might not be as long as I had planned, but I was able to get p5.scenemanger to work and I was also able to add music and other sound effects to specific scenes. I also changed the narrative a bit from when I first wrote it. I made the narrative less wordy, so that the visuals can tell the story. There are 4 different endings that you could potentially get, and if you win, you are able to start the game over again to get a different ending. Overall I am satisfied with what I created. If I had more time, I would make the narrative longer, and I would add more visual/sound effects to make it more interesting. I might even add puzzles that the user has to complete to get a certain ending. My code is on OpenPrecessing:

Inspiration:

My inspiration came from this gif I saw a while back and thought it was super cute.

I wound up with almost my full vision for the game, except for a few things. My game consists of a timed whack-a-mole style game where the holes become active randomly while a timer counts down from 30 seconds while the number of missed “whacks” are recorded and reset after 30 seconds. Additionally, I included a level counter which goes up after missing less than four whacks after 30 seconds, else, it resets back to one.

I originally wanted a whack-a-kitty game with two timers, one to pre-countdown to let the player prepare, and the other to go off after the countdown when the game begins. I also wanted the game to get harder ad the levels went up, but didn’t have enough time to implement that. I put in code to have sound effects, but I could not seem to find the sound library to put into openprocessing.

Final Code:

DISCLAIMER: NO KITTIES WERE HURT IN THE MAKING OF THIS GAME

This week’s biggest accomplishment was getting the radio buttons to work; now the planets can be added and removed from the universe. Last week I was unsure about what I wanted to do with the universe after it has been created; during this week I worked on making a quiz that will decide the fate of the universe created. The fate of the user’s created universe is dependent on the decisions they make in the quiz as well as the number of planets that are created. Based on the score, a message will be generated that describes the fate of your universe. I also added a button that allows the user to start the ‘game’ over once they get their universe’s fate (this way they can create new universes and possibly get a few outcome). This week I am going to translate my code so that it uses the scene manager library. After talking to Scott, he recommended I use that instead. This next week I will be working on moving my code and making final touches. I want to make it more stylized; I’m going to finalize text and button placement and pick the final colors.

For my final project, virtual pet game, I have made up to the timer part.
I used millis() to calculate time on when a certain text should appear. I also implemented all the graphics the is in the game. I figured out a score system where each two points makes the pet “grow.”

One problem I ran to was not my code but my computer and the program. I have been having a lot of issues with my computer and many times it force quits all my applications I’m running, including Chrome. So It happened again where my computer force quitted while my tab with my project I was working on. And for some reason I cannot restore.

But since I already accomplished and figured out how to do timer, doing it again shouldn’t take that long. One more big component I need to add is the interactive part of the game, where the user can feed and play with the pet.
If I am feeling ambitious with time, I want to add a feature where the user can take a picture with their pet. I would have to do this by calling the webcam and placing the pet in the frame.

For my final, I have finally decided to create a bird finder game, where you identify birds by their sound. The basic idea behind this is that a guide will tell you what bird to look out for and then you try to listen for it. If you do hear the bird you press a buzzer or a key on the keyboard that’s how you get points, if you dont press it at the correct time you lose.   I have created the start menu and instruction menu. These menus have clickable buttons which take you to the next scene. I have also created a timer to which is extremely useful in the creation of this game.  Once the game scene is loaded I have created all the sounds for how the game is going to sound. now I have some of the files left. I am now working on getting the buzzer to work and creating the scenarios of if it is missed and if you hit the buzzer correctly. Once I have those two things done the rest should be easy. The final thing I would have to implement is a reset button if they lose and want to get a higher score and maybe a level system of easy, medium and hard.

So far, I have almost all elements, both audio and visual, that I will be including in my final piece. I was worried about composing a collection of sound (I don’t want to call it music) from scratch because I don’t have any experience in electronic music, audio engineering or composing. gibber has many presets that are based on electronic music terminology and numbers, but I was able to understand them enough to come up with something that I envisioned: a sad dreamy sound with psychedelic visual. Tomorrow in class, I will only be able to show half of the whole project, because now my biggest task is to integrate all the components together and this is what I have so far in terms of putting things together. Since this code best works when it is executed line by line, I will have to decide what comes after another and what turns off and on at certain points during the live coding performance. I have to integrate 4 other audio components that include samples from Freesound API, a major visual transition, and an ending.

Building off of the code examples, I have made a display for showing exactly when something enters the threshold of the kinect’s camera  and displays a dot the follows the group of pixels to show where the object will be displayed depending on how the user interacts with the camera. As of this point i have all the basic parts of the final idea. I wanted to try to get an understanding of how to display something on camera as its own scene. I will ask for some assistance with the kinect if there  are any available and for advice for any directions i should pivot into for this last week of coding in class on Friday.

Parts & Resources:

 

Fritzing:

Prototype:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Test the capacity sensor with the cat: it works the same as I touch it. The value is around 65.

Servo is working.