YUCHEN (CARSTEN) HUANG
Gameplay Programmer
P O S T M A N' S R U N
PLATFORM: Kinect, TIME: 2 weeks, ROLE: Programmer
An idle game with comical artstyle, in which guests need to throw out the correct objects the dog is desiring, to distract it and stop it from chasing the postman.
As a programmer, I implemented the player controller, game state and game interfaces (Fig.1 & 2).
In the first version, every time the player gets a chance to distract dog, one random object icon out of four will appear at one of the corners, and the player needs to reach that exact icon and move to the vertical opposite corner to mimic the throwing out action. This design has disadvantages that players can make few choices but only to follow what's showing up, and they won't care about the objects on the icons. There was also lack of feedback on players action, especially when the player misses the chance.
We changed our interface by dividing the objects into two categories: food and toy. Once every several seconds, the dog will ask for one category, and two icons with objects from different category show up at left bottom and right bottom, one at each side, and the player need to throw the object of the category the dog is asking for to distract dog. Either throwing object of wrong category or ignore the dog's desire cause negative feedback that dog speeds up for a while.
Fig.1 Icon of cookie shows up at left top, and the paired gray target appears at left bottom. The player reaches the object icon first, then reach the target, to throw out the object and distract the dog.
Fig.2 Dog is desiring for toys. Bone (food) icon pops up at left bottom, and tennis ball (toy) pops up at right bottom. Green dots marks the position of player's hands, providing feedback for reaching the icons. Score, HP and progress bar are added.