Making IP2

For the 2nd interactive prototype, not a lot changed concept wise, but I made a lot a changes to the game's interaction and code.

In this iteration, the Guess Who element and the physical controls were added. In order to account for the guessing/elimination features I had to add in new object (character.as) for the extra mystery frog date characters , which held attributes representing their characteristics:

• colour: red, blue, green
• wearing a hat: true/false
• wearing glasses: true/false

As well as adjusting the existing code to support the new feature, I also added a new function to show the clues that help describe the mystery frog (chosen randomly each time the game restarts)

One annoying problem was with one of the red trucks appear at the top of the screen, above the clue box, even though the stacking order seemed to be correct. I tried deleting the last truck added to the truck array, but this just forced the next last truck to do the same thing. I ended up working around this and cheating by adding an extra truck to the stage, but positioning it below the visible stage area, so it stayed hidden.

Working on the new code

The final interface, with the new clue box sidebar added to display the clues one at a time

The game board is made from a piece of 15mm thick MDF, and the 10 tiles are also cut from this material. Each tile has an illustration of a different frog character (each one has a unique description, and physical attributes are evenly spread out). The top of each tile has a metal screw at the top with a wire soldered through to the back connected to a Makey Makey input (the letters WASDFG and the 4 directional arrow keys). The tile is attached to the bottom board with a hinge, so when it is dropped down, it hits another metal screw which is wired to the earth.

The game board

The back of the board

Close up of the game board and Makey Makey

After initial testing the game, I found that the tiles sometimes bounced when dropped down. This caused the controls to malfunction, either not registering at all, or conversely too many times, meaning the movement of the frog character on screen didn't move at all or move too many times. To combat this, I added some aluminium foil to cover the bottom contact. This seemed to work at first, but didn't fix the issue completely. I then tried taping some pieces of steel wool on instead, this worked a lot better and also made it less noisier. I then decided to solder the steel wool in place so it stayed in place.

I also decided to add in a physical replay button to replace the spacebar key - it's just a wire attached to the space key, with a paper "button" taped on top which when pressed touches a screw connected to the ground.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. I was pretty lucky to have my partner help me construct the board in a way that kept it all nice and neatly organised and taught me how to solder the wires in place. If it were up to me there would've been a mass confusion of wires running all over the place. The steel wool and screw contacts are probably not the most ideal solution for ensuring the best contact between the tile and the board, as it does tend to move a bit. But for this stage it works the majority of the time and is easy to adjust and manoeuvre. The size and weight of the board also are a bit too much, but it was a cheap and easy material to use appropriate for a prototype at this early stage.

Testing the game

Adding the steel wool to the bottom metal contacts