A game where the player controls a girl inside a war zone that she cannot escape from

I want to make a game. In this game, the player plays as a little girl inside the war zone. She is not a glorious military leader, run and gunning her way through the map. Instead, she will just explore and live a mundane life while the war rages around her. She can explore the outside, avoid threats, and attempt to go to school. However, she could get killed. When that happens, she will wake up back in her bed, as if though she just had a bad dream. However some changes from the previous days are carried over.

Soldiers are deadly. Also are bulldozers, as inspired by what is happening in Palestine. The setting is not going to be any specific location, but instead it will be something relatable, so by turning it into a war zone, the game can hit the uncanny. The girl will start off with a family, but with each repetition, they might disappear.

The girl, being a child, can play in the war zones, in addition to going to school.

For my research, I looked at many media, from films to games, that touch upon the inglorious aspect of war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_War_of_Mine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spec_Ops:_The_Line

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schindler%27s_List

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkweed_%28novel%29

In addition, I have researched many real-world wars and people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_demolition_in_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass

I was also reminded that war is not glorious by an reddit thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2n269n

Specifically this one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2n269n/serious_retired_soldiers_on_reddit_what_was/cm9pu1n

Finally, Paolo’s game inspired the interaction mechanic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Day_the_Same_Dream

Tweetable: Drum Machine + Dancing Robots!

I divide my project into two parts, the drum machine, and the dancing accompaniment. The project as a whole should map user-input beats information to audio and robotic movement.

In the drum machine part, I will show an imaginary turntable on the screen. This turntable has 4 rings, and each ring correspond to one music sample. User can arrange the position of music sample on specific positions of the ring, by choosing “skip” or “put” options on these positions, just before samples playback.

Details:

Input part is done by Xbox One controller.

Graphics is done by Processing, which has game controller libraries.

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In the dancing accompaniment part, I plan to hack a dancing robot and design dancing patterns for it. The dancing patterns should correspond to the music. I guess if there isn’t enough time for me to get this part done, I should use animation dancing accompaniment as the image shown before.

Details:

Plan to use Arduino to control the robot. Haven’t figure out what the best solution for this part.

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Research I have done:

Fantastic Drum Machines

ChenLiang-LookingOutwards-1

Cute Dancing Robot:

http://www.mykeepon.com

Other Robots:

http://www.pleoworld.com/pleo_rb/eng/index.php

http://www.gosphero.com (This one has an active community.)

Project:

I want to make a dress that’s inspired by a hurricane.

History:

Dress making is a hobby of mine, and in the past I’ve experimented with alternative dress making that included creating a series of social issue inspired dresses

Basic hurricane elements:

water

wind

destruction to everything but the objects in it’s eye

electricity

What will it hopefully look like?:

Does it respond to stimulus?

Yes it does!!

An element of hurricanes that I’m very fascinated by is the way their eyes are the only part of them that are calm. I see this as a defense mechanism and would like to exploit it by having the fog and water respond to external features—such as the light in the room will produce more fog to cloak the wearer—and act as a defense system.

Links/references:

http://gizmodiva.com/fashion/interactive_weather_dresses_by_valerie_lamontagne.php

Ghost Detector is an experiment in generative sensation, specifically in communicating information through haptics.

For my MHCI capstone project I am working on promoting situational awareness for first responders. One of the main challenges first responders face is sensory overload, especially on the visual and auditory channels. What I would like to explore is translating information that would typically arrive as visual or auditory information and translate it into an intelligible pattern of touch; a form of directed synesthesia.

While the information being communicated is important, what I want to focus on is the output sensations and their natural interpretations. I am inspired in large part by Method’s Henri, a box for experimenting with audio and visual output for peripheral displays. Rather than start with what information they want to communicate, they start with the sensation and work backwards to map our natural interpretations to data. By making a device to detect “ghosts,” I can be somewhat arbitrary in what data I use as input and focus solely on the user’s interpretation. The ghosts might be constructed from data such as thermal imaging, distance, CO2, or sound — all things that could be important for first responders as well.

On the sensation side, pressure, location, and vibration pattern are the obvious candidates for output, but I would also like to look at how texture can be used to modulate the other variables.

Preliminary sketches to map out information on different channels and how they can be shifted:

Cardboard Prototype (I don’t know why these are rotated, they are vertical literally everywhere else):