Blind Marvel: A People Game

Archana, Elena Parker, Sarah Hallacher and I are weorking together on our first assignment for Big Games. The instructions are pretty open ended. We are to come up with a game that could accomodate a large number of people.

During our first brainstorm, we realized we were all interested in creating a game where the players had to move around but that their movement was limited somehow and physically awkward.

We came up with the idea around a blind superhero who was trying to save the townspeople who they themselves can see but cannot move. They are frozen. The townspeople are scattered accross a field and use their voices to guide the superhero to them.

In addition there’s a blind supervillain who’s goal is kill the superhero before he saves all the townspeople.

When a townsperson is saved, they must follow the hero directly behind him. He can still use his voice to guide superhero.

We playtested this game with a few curious folks one night to get a feel for the game and get feedback from outsiders.

Feedback:
– the townspeople wanted more power
– add more strategy to how we collect people

Basic HTML

This week’s assignment was to practice HTML4 and CSS2. So I started building the layout for the homepage of betherenyc. Here is what is might start to look like. I wanted to practice working with fluid layouts so everything scales as you resize the window. Later I will be adding media-queries to create a responsive layout. When this is done, the goal is for betherenyc to look great on whatever size display (desktop, mobile, tablet, whatever).

Here’s the progress.

Dynamic Javascript

Our assignment this week was to get comfortable with Javascript. We had to create a simple form to collect data and use javascript to manipulate the html elements. I decided to start create creating a form that will be used to get event data for betherenyc. On submit, a new event is added to the “Recently Added” list on the side. You can also click on the titles on this list and get more information about each event.

View the page here.

Fun Theory: Bicycle Lights

Can you change people’s behavior by making something fun to do? Our assignment this week was to come up with our own Fun Theory, illustrate the problem and the solution.

The problem is: it is extremely dangerous to ride your dark at night without lights. In fact it’s the law to have theme.

My solution: I want to make it fun to have you lights on while riding and to celebrate your doing so, so as you pass a sensor with your lights, a spotlight will follow you for a few feet and play music for you to jam to. Here it’s playing “Flashlight” by the 70’s funk band Parliament.

Cartoon self, simplification exercise

bethereNYC will be revived!

betherenyc (be there nyc) is a project I’ve been working on (on and off) for a few years. Read its history here. My plan for the semester is to revive it and launch by end of May. Taking the skills, knowledge, and time afforded by my classes this semester, I think it’s going to be a kick-ass project.

betherenyc is a location-based mobile website that shows free and cheap events happening around you now. I will be using my HTML5, Dynamic Web Development, and User Experience Design classes to finally complete this project.

I will be using various data sources for pulling the events information as well as using user-submitted data. For example, one set of data will be from NYC’s Open Data, the Calendar of Special Events.

 

Interactive Jellyfish Light Sculpture

Overview

Our lighting sculpture evolved into a jellyfish inspired interactive sculpture that emits lights and is able to hear and speak like a living organism. When people get closer, her heart starts beating and she emits light and makes sounds in her own language. As she is from the deep sea, we don’t exactly know what she is saying, but she wants to communicate with people.

The lighting sculpture is constructed from laser-cut acrylic and a matrix of 12v. LEDs that are soldered together in a way that allows each LED to be controlled individually. The sculpture also has range finder that senses when an object or person is close, and speakers. Continue reading

Punch Me, I Dare You – Kinect Game

[PHOTOS and VIDEO COMING SOON]

Overview
Punch Me, I Dare You is a game that Tony Lim and I worked on for our ICM final. It uses a hacked Kinect, Processing, and MaxMSP. Download the full game here.

The Game
It’s a stress-relieving game that encourages the  player to punch areas of a face on screen (See my teasing face above). There are five areas: left eye, right eye, nose, left cheek, and right cheek. Each area must accumulate a certain amount of damage through punching before the player can move to the next area. A short clip of high-energy music plays each time a punch is landed, and the music progresses as the player progresses through the game. The game is timed, encouraging the player to want to beat their own time. Continue reading

Color Composition

Business Card

Proudly powered by WordPress
Theme: Esquire by Matthew Buchanan.