Week 02 - Alt + Control Interface

Assignment 1: Find an interesting existing Alt + Ctrl interface

The Alt+Ctrl interface I chose：

People of the Moon

It’s a two players cooperate game. Two players together glide to collect lights above an island that’s always partying. When enough lights collected, the people of the island can go to sleep.

They constructed a teeter-totter-like installation as the game controller which I thought could bring much interesting and somehow unpredicted interaction during the play.

They metioned that they had used 3 sensors with Arduino to give inputs to Unity. (Maybe just 3 accelerometer sensors to detect each directions data change I think.)

As players control the glide direction by tiling body and the lever on the side of the armrest, they need at the same time get the teeter-totter to move and it somehow may not go the way players want. Just like their inspiration from ‘people playing video games on their phones when playing the teeter-totter’, making the ‘teeter-totter’ itself a controller to let two people play the cooperate game is bringing more posibilities.

Their vlog of making process (presentation on 2:08):

Assignment 2: Come up with a concept for my own Alt+Ctrl Interface

Sensors choosed：

Accelerometer & Sound(Noise) sensor

Interaction ideas with the sensor：

Idea 1: Attach the sensors to our body (wearable device)

• Accelerometer: Tilt(swing) our body to send data.
• Sound(Noise) sensor: Pat, or Blow, or Speak (to make noise) towards some area on our body to send data.

Idea 2: Attach the sensors to some daily objects held in hands (like a cup, a book, .etc)

• Accelerometer: Hold and tilt the object to send data.
• Sound(Noise) sensor: Knock, or Blow, or Speak to the object to send data.

Think about controlling existing video game：

The Game:

Journey

Journey is an indie advanture game, in which the player soars above ruins, glides across sands and snows as they explore the secrets of a forgotten civilization. (the scenes are amazing, and like very much the atmosphere designed and created in it.)

In Journey, the player controls a robed figure in a vast desert, traveling towards a mountain in the distance. Other players on the same journey can be discovered, and two players can meet and assist each other, but they cannot communicate via speech or text and cannot see each other’s names until after the game’s credits. The only form of communication between the two is a musical chime, which transforms dull pieces of cloth found throughout the levels into vibrant red, affecting the game world and allowing the player to progress through the levels. The developers sought to evoke in the player a sense of smallness and wonder and to forge an emotional connection between them and the anonymous players they meet along the way. - From Wikipedia

A nice introductory video about Journey :

Use the interaction idea in the video game like Journey :

The input data from Accelerometer can be used to control the soaring directions of the character.

The data from Sound(Noise) sensor can be used to control the abstract message sending during the game and some leap actions.

like this 👇: