Ignite the Sky: Interactive Game Comparing Varying Levels Of User Engagement

Abstract Ignite the Sky is a game that will consist of two different modes to compare which is more effective in keeping kids engaged while interacting with the monitor. One mode will be the explorative version in which the kids will have more free reign with the tangible stamps and interacting with the sky. The second mode will be the game mode in which there is

constraints to encourage improvement with each round of playing after the time limit is reached.

Author Keywords Interactive; Touch; Monitor; Tangible Stamps; Processing; Explorative; Game Play; Fireworks; Engaging; Goals; Free Reign

ACM Classification Keywords H5.2. [User Interfaces] User Centered Design

Introduction I created this piece for my final project for VIST 405 studio course at Texas A&M University under the direction of Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo. Ignite the Sky is an interactive game for kids to calm themselves with before stressful medical appointments such as in Dentist or Pediatric offices. When I was young, I remember playing in an arcade area just outside my dentist’s office before being called in for my appointment. This kept my mind off of the seemingly scary appointment I was about to be called into. It allowed me to distract myself and keep my mind off of my fear of the dentist. Ignite the Sky is designed to be easily accessible in locations such lobbies or waiting areas of pediatric or dentist offices. This game concept and implementation was designed to find new ways to keep children calm and engaged when entering a stressful environment.

Tara French Texas A&M University 231 Forest Dr. College Station, Tx 77840 USA Tarafrench7@tamu.edu

Background This interactive game is designed to have two different modes with similar themes and game play mechanics. This was intentionally done in order to study and compare the different levels of engagement and interaction users have between explorative and game mechanic modes.

Based upon other projects that have been created within this field of study, it is said that users generally enjoy and spend more time on games that have more free reign with less constraints. In today’s gaming world many large companies are producing and conceptualizing games that have open world setups so users can roam the environment as they please rather then having to follow a specific set of instructions or path. One of the projects I found that has been previously done, observed that students were able to more effectively learn concepts from educational games when they had less constraints prompting them to answer or continue the game in a certain way rather then when it was a more directed and guided game play.

With finding conclusions such as these, I anticipated that the explorative game environment, in which the user can interact with the night sky for as long as they please, to engage the users longer when studied with children in user studies.

Design Concept The overall concept of both modes is to have the user interact and create their own visuals within the night sky before them. Fireworks are a visually pleasing display of colors and light. Many children associate

firework shows with fond memories of being on vacation or somewhere special they were able to witness them. Having them implemented into this interactive game helps bring those fond memories into the users mind to enhance their enjoyment and ease while interacting with the game.

The explorative mode is designed so the user has free reign to interact with the monitor for as long as they please with no time constraint or end goal. There are three different stamps in which the user can press to the monitor screen to perform different functionalities. The red stamp when pressed to the screen creates a multicolored firework to explode at that location in the night sky. The blue stamp when used at any location will display multicolored burst at random across the screen as a light show for the user to watch. The yellow stamp will make the stars in the night sky twinkle and shift to bring the background to life.

The Game Mechanic mode was designed to prompt the user to keep challenging themselves to play the game repeatedly to increase their top score. The user only uses one tangible pointer stamp when interacting with the monitor. Once the game has started three targets are placed at random within the sky for the user to touch with their stamp to ignite the firework at that location. Every correct firework created gives the user one point added to their score. There is a timer with each set of three random targets and they reset after the timer is up. If all three fireworks are not ignited the user looses a life and when they have no more lives the game is over, displaying their received score.

Figure 1: Start screen for the game mechanic mode, prompting the user to ignite the targets.

Implementation The entirety of the visuals and interactive mechanics were coded in Processing. I created each mode within separate Processing files. I started by first creating preliminary functionality codes for each of the three stamps used in the explorative mode in separate files. Once I had them working in a way that was satisfactory I started implementing them together in the same file with code that recognized the stamps as different 3-point formations on their base. Parallel with this I started to code the game mechanic mode.

The three tangible stamps used in the explorative mode are made out of conductive material and plastic so when the base points are touched to the screen, the monitor registers them as points of contact. The pointer stamp used for the game mechanic mode is made out of soft wool fabric and interlaced with conductive

thread so when the user is holding the stamp the conductive line runs down to the piece of conductive fabric sewn at the base of the stamp.

Participant Feedback & Conclusion Ignite the Sky received great reviews from all those who experienced it during the Visualization Fall Show. Unfortunately no official user studies were able to take place within the time frame of the creation of the project however the observations of the general public interacting with the game was very positive.

Overall, it seemed as though many of the users actually preferred the game mechanic mode to the explorative. The functionality of the game mechanic was more reliable than some of the stamps for the explorative, which may have skewed the users interaction making them less likely to stay engaged as long.

Figure 2: One of the users playing the explorative mode of Ignite the Sky.

Figure 3: One of the users playing the game mechanic mode of Ignite the Sky.

Future Plan Performing and collecting official data and observations from user studies with the target age group would be beneficial to fully achieve a conclusion on which mode users seemed more engaged and responded better to. If I were to continue designing and creating this project, I would focus on trying to more closely tie the two modes to be more similar in game play functionality to each other. Having both operate with three stamps with similar functions rather than having one mode with three stamps and one mode with having only one stamp.

Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge my professor Jinsil Hwaryoung Seo for her guidance and expertise in interaction design. Also David Verona and Anthony Cristone I would like to thank for coding help and expertise without which my project would not be what it is today.