Week 3: Ideas

So far I've come up with 2 potential ideas to prototype:

Wearable Idea

• Problem: Meeting new people can be daunting for the first time and can create social awkwardness/anxiety
  
  Solution: A small wearable display that either encourages or dissuades social interaction by showing compatibility with those around you. If you meet someone who shares no common interests it can be awkward or tedious to have to make conversation with that person. Using this, people will enter their interests in a companion app. When you get near to someone (who's also wearing one) the device will display a happy face if you have many things in common or a sad face if not. You can now avoid people based on this and find people who may be more compatible. Alternatively you could challenge yourself to talk to people with no common interests as you. Either way, people would have some conversation material to break the ice.
  
  I'm not sure how I'd use this concept for the interactive prototype 2 requirement. This requires a physical input component, using the MakeyMakey to create a novel physical interaction, and this concept so far doesn't really afford any creative physical interactions now, apart from wearing the device and looking at it's display.

Game Mashup Idea
The idea I've been thinking about so far is a mashup between Guess Who and Frogger:

• Combining the guessing/elimination element of Guess Who with the gameplay of Frogger (i.e. crossing the road while avoiding danger).
• The aim is to navigate the frog across the road to safety and also eliminate other characters to reveal 1 final character (this character could be revealed once all others are eliminated and the frog crosses the road)
• The computer chooses a character. The player has to make a guess based on the given options about the characteristics of the unknown character (e.g. is it/he/she wearing a hat?). Each correct elimination allows the frog to make a move across the road.
• Physical Interactions: using large tiles like in Guess who with different characters displayed, each time the player flips one down allows the frog to make a move. The player has to time each flip to avoid moving objects, which is shown on the screen.
• You lose if the frog dies (by getting hit) or if you guess the character incorrectly.
• The game could be 2 player, the fastest player to cross and guess correctly wins.

This week's plan is to choose one of these ideas (I'll get some feedback from other people) and elaborate on how it can be prototyped.

I need to start on planning a script and statement of delivery for the video prototype, so I can start filming on the weekend. I'm aiming to edit it and finalise statement of delivery by early next week, before the Wednesday deadline.