Making the Game (VISUALS) By Danny Sharp

Hello,

I have been busy working on the visuals for our project working closely with Tadej to achieve a desired look to the layout of the interactive installation. As all of the installations were about charms of the sea, we were given a sub-group Protection Charms to let the user learn and interact to gain a better understanding of the charms.

To enable the user to learn about the charms we had the idea to split the installation into two parts.

The first part would consist of an idea of creating a book where the user would be able to flick through the pages gathering the relevant information for the charms we have researched for our project. This would then let the users know all the information they would need to know about the charms and therefore gaining an understanding of the aim of the installation.

The second part of the installation would be where the user would be able to test the knowledge of the charms that they have gathered when reading the book in the previous part. For this part we are using the idea of the user being the captain on the ship, where the mission is to collect different types of fish. Whilst collecting the fish you will then encounter dangers which will need to be passed by using the charms of protection to save the crew from these dangers.

Visually, there have been many changes to the layout and style of the game as i have developed the look of the game from being plain and not having much relevance to the game to a better more professional look to all the parts of the game and menus.

Here are some screenshots of the designs i have been working on for the game.

This first picture is showing the layout of the whole screen which will the have the ship and the sea overlaid as you explore and uncover the map.

Here is a picture of a screen which will popup whilst playing the game and it will have questions and answers which you must answer to save the crew. All these pages will have images which can be click to reveal if the answers are wrong or right.

I have also started creating some screens for the win and lose screens for if you manage/fail to answer the questions in the time.

This is working progress so all the designs and layouts will be changed for the finishing installation.

Thanks for reading. Danny Sharp

Pitch & Initial Feedback

Making the Game Pt. 3 - We are Sailing! by Tadej Droljc

Making the Game Pt. 2 - Ship Movement by Tadej Droljc

Making the Game Pt. 1 - Exploring the Unknown by Tadej Droljc

Sea Sounds - Andy Ayres

Just been out down to south bay, harbor and town centre to pick up some audio. Got some great sounds even thought it is stupidly cold out there!

Visit at the Rotunda Museum - The Critique of Interactivity by Tadej Droljc

   The Rotunda Museum, also known as the William Smith Museum of Geology, has two different interactive applications. One is available on the three small independent touch screens while the second one is accessible through one larger touch screen. The application on the small screens is divided into two parts. One is a quiz like game about the sea erosion and the other is a newspaper article collage in the pdf format about the Holbeck Hall Hotel that partially fell into the sea in the 1993. The game and the article go well together since they both are about the soil creep and the sea erosion. The topic of both sub applications is probable not suitable for small children so the museum offers another application on the big touch screen that seems like an educational game for the youngest. But there is a slight issue with that.

   The main problem about the application on the big touch screen is that it is to high for very small children to reach. I think it should be position in a way that at least four year old kids could reach its entire surface. Therefore if one small child wants to play with it, somebody needs to lift him. That could be a problem if a child comes with its granny which is probably not a rare situation in a town like Scarborough. If we add to this another weakness of the game, which is that a user has no control over the time events that constitute the game, it seems even additionally wrong that the screen is not positioned lower. Very small children are probably the only clientele that has no need for exit or main menu buttons. Beside that the game itself, the esthetics and the animation is probably too simple to attract older children (adults included). Majority of the kids that can reach high enough to play that game probably has a need for higher level of interactivity and the feel of organicity. For instance if one decide to put 10 dinosaurs on the Yorkshire coast, the result is 10 exactly the same dinosaur pictures on the screen only scaled according to the location (near or further away) which gives a very artificial feel to the game. That looks especially wrong if user slides with the finger across the screen which just pastes a lot of equal images. Therefore this is a bad exploitation of the possibilities that that particular touch screen offers. There should be at least some different pictures for one plant or specie in the program that could be randomly selected when a user would place them in. 3D model of a landscape that one can rotate would be even a better option. On the other hand the educational value of the game is to small to compensate the lack of amusement.  

   The application on the small screen seems much more appropriate to me. The one who plays a quiz like game will probably learn more about the erosion as if one would only read an article about it. The game somehow "forces" you to think about the problems and possible solutions. The pdf like article collection is as well working fine because it doesn't bombard one with loads of information at one time. There are bits of interesting information that are exposed and with the accompanying pictures it may seduce many users to go to the last page. That might result in a situation where one will start to read an article or part of it while on the other hand, in the case of a text on the paper, that might not happen at all. Person could be discouraged from reading by the amount of text. The only potential weakness of that application is that the user can click only on arrows and menus although this may be the best solution for the that kind of an application.

Rotunda Visit - Andy Ayres

The very informative and action packed rotunda visit was everything you could of asked from a museum exhibition. The old building had a modern well designed flow, smooth well labeled signing with neutral colours and modern interactive features.  

The 'Shell Geology Now' room was the main room in the rotunda building with TVs, interactive instillation, models and fossils. The first TV as you walk in is a nice feature to get you involved straight away. Nice use of the sound beam allows you the hear the video if you want to, and so not to disturb the other visitors if not.

The dinosaur skeleton is accompanied by a video of the local person that discovered the first section, this adds a personal aspect to the feature as well as answering more in depth questions about the dinosaur.

The interactive dinosaur instillation is a massive feature in the museum which allows the user to design their own prehistoric habitat. Plants, landscape, dinosaurs and wildlife are all things which the user has to choose from. The program is very eye grabbing and massive in terms of screen size. Color and font size make it easy for small children and adults alike to use. On the downside the program is that its interesting for only 2 minutes as thats how long it takes for you to complete the exercise. It seems very one dimensional and in a way pointless as you don't learn a great deal.  To use the touch screen it can hurt your fingers after a while because of the pressure you have the apply to register a click, so it could be difficult for young children. 

I found the other shell installation a lot more interesting as it was educational, interesting, challenging and informative than the other more larger installation as you could learn about coastal erosion, how they find oil, protect different settlements and meet the geologists. 

Great Stuff! Andy  

Rotunda Museum By Danny Sharp

On Wednesday we visited the Woodend Creative Space and viewed the charms that we would be making an exhibition about. From examining the charms up close we were able to learn more about the protection charms, the selected charm group we would be working on. Following this we spent the remaining time in the Rotunda Museum, the building where the exhibition is to be held.  During this time we were able to get a feel of the space that we would be holding our work in. Whilst we were there we saw the existing interactive installations, which were already usable in the museum. These consisted of three touch screen interfaces and one touch screen television.

The good points that I found about the existing interfaces were:

Appealing Layouts – Professionally laid out with minimal text to ensure that the user doesn’t lose interest. This made the interface more enticing to want to know what the information was about. The interface also had a quiz that allowed the user to answer questions, which added a fun factor which people would benefit from whilst learning more information about the topic. This was the also the same idea with the touch screen television which allowed the user to make their own picture with all the different creatures of the time.

The bad points about the existing installations were:

Bad Sensitivity (Touch-screen Television) – Users of this machine had to apply a high amount of pressure to buttons and icons on screen. This might mean users lose interest due to not having the ability to use the screen. Also limited games were installed on the T.V so this only grabs the user’s attention for a small amount of time.

This information will be used to create a well laid out, professional and easy to user system for the exhibition that we have to make for the Rotunda museum.

Rotunda Museum - http://www.rotundamuseum.co.uk/news/?edid=5410