Final Presentation

Since the project phase of this course is over now it is time to publish a video of the final state for the time being.

User Testing

In the past week we are in the position to make the first user testing. We met 2 people that we didn't talk to before and encouraged them to do the Think Aloud method meaning tell us their thoughts during the race.

The Implementation - Iteration 2

After we made the two prototypes and tested then we found that some adjustments had to be made.

Heuristic Evaluation

This week we did a heuristic evaluation of our prototype and idea. For more information see the articles in [heuristic evaluation]. Some of the heuristics cannot be applied to our game concept, because it is very minimalist in most cases.

The Implementation - Iteration 1

For the first iteration in the implementation phase we were focusing on the most important functionalities. The goal was to create a stable base for all further implementations.
The first step was the development of a full functional sled racing simulation to have something we can start optimizing the input system for. After that we were able to split the work into two jobs.

Paper prototype

Since we are computer science students and we don't like blindly using paper and then throw it away. We like the trees, because they convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. Instead, we made a short gif depicting the action component of our game. Two of the four player screens are omitted. This is also the second scenario of our storyboard. Afterwards we created one small paper prototype and tested it on 2 users.

Design

After the interviews we have thought about a better way to communicate the control of the cart to the player. When we changed the setting, all of a sudden we didn't had a problem anymore.

User Interviews

For getting external feedback or new ideas we created a set of interview questions that should lead into a conversation about our game concept.
To respect the interviewees right to privacy we will name our participants A, B, C during the further text.

Storyboard

As our project is a game for a public display, we want to show in an easy manner what can be expected. I hear "storyboard". Sure, coming right up!

GO - Initial Description

In the next weeks we will realize an action game with the development name GO. It will be a conversion of the classic game Mario Card, but it should be controlled without any tactile input devices. Microsoft Kinect hardware combined with a big public screen should offer a complete new gaming experience.
It will not only be a fun racing game, but also have action battle elements like the original game. So the natural control mechanisms will be very complex, but should be realized as intuitive body movements. GO will be playable with up to four players in split screen mode.
So in the end the game should offer a very funny and social experience while it will cheer each player on to be the best and win the match.

Initial Brainstorming

In our initial brainstorming we tried to collect very different approaches for applications and game ideas. Our main goal is to find something that could be interesting for a wide range of people.

User Profiles

Since our final application should run on public displays located in public buildings we have set ourselves the goal of creating something that is interesting for almost every person that is passing by. Not being scared of getting in touch with a computer system combined with a bit of play instinct should be enough for being interested to give our application a try. So as a first step it is necessary to isolate the different types of people that are forming our target user crowd.

Kick-Off

Hello!

First of all, let's introduce ourselves. The team consists of Johann and Artjom. We are computer science students at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. After countless semesters one can say, we can do many things, but designing the perfect UX (user experience) is not necessary among them. So we want to try and come up with something good and also learn a few things along the way.