BigFoot

The Team

arnab
harsh
harish
prachi

The Game

Introduction
The work presented here is done as a part of Electronic Workshop held in NID during 25th August to 5th September, 2008. The aim of the workshop was to make students familiar with the ‘Electronic Art’ and how various interactions can be transformed to pieces of ART.

Get Started
After a day long introduction on technology and ‘Processing’ we dismantled a keyboard and used the inside circuitry to build a simple four key input device. Now the challenge was to come up with an interactive interface using the basic circuitry that we built. So after thinking about various kinds of interfaces that can be built with the available resources, we free zed on the gaming domain. We wanted to make a gaming interface which would be much more interactive and the user will be physically more involved while playing the game. So we thought of building a gaming environment in which the controls will be at the feet of the player.And the ground in front of him will be the screen rather than a screen projected on the wall. And the environment should be dynamic enough which would give him feel that he is in that environment and the final environment was based on the concept of relative motion.

Initial Idea

GamePad_Ver1_web.jpg

The first concept was to develop a gaming controller which can be operated by foot. So we made abase with four foot switches, and each of which were assigned specific controls. This interface was good enough for simple games where we just needed the directions. We tried playing the game Wolf 3D using this controller which was successful.

GamePad_Ver2_1_Web.jpg
The four way navigation game pad

Final idea
The interactive game that we developed was basically a block game in which there is a board and a ball. And with the help of this board you have to direct the ball in such a way that it would hit the blocks and the player could score points. This type of game is already in existence but in our game there is a new concept. In this game the board remains static but the blocks move along with the ball. So it enhances the user experience as the whole environment is more dynamic. And we have given two foot switches.

The user has two types of foot pads

1) See-saw foot pad
The user has to stand on a small board with his two feet which acts as a small see-saw. So the user can control the movement by moving his body weight from one side to the other. This will allow him to move the blocks and as the ball is also moving he has to find a proper balance so that he could hit the bricks with the ball. So it gives him the feeling that he himself is standing on that board and engages the user in a more effective manner.

GamePad_Ver4_3_web.jpg

2) Flat foot pad
This is the second type of switches which the user will use while (s)he is sitting on a chair. Here the user needs to use his foot to press the buttons in order to give the desired direction.

GamePad_Ver3_web.jpg

Game Play Video

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