Theme
Play and Object
Context
Makey Makey video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfQqh7iCcOU
Do Amazing Things Using Everyday Objects with Makey Makey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWPKJF5enkk
After watching videos of making different objects as different keyboard buttons to play games or making them musical instruments. Cindy was also interested in making something with MakeyMakey as well as food. Thus, Cindy and I had an idea of utilizing MakeyMakey to play with gummy bears.
Method
Using Unity to code the game and use MakeyMakey to connect the objects as a source of input. The graphical components are designed by Cindy.
Response
(Project collaborated with Cindy Wang)
We decided to make a game in which a random order with a combination of gummy bears of different colours is generated in the beginning. Then, the players need to input the sequence according to the order and then touch the fork to start “eating” them.
I have never worked in programming before and just learnt some of the basics during the summer break. First, I tried on generating random sequences of three items with a list of three colours. Then, the player input is stored in another list. I compared the components in the two lists to check if the player input is correct. I got stuck there because even when the player input was the same as the random sequence, my game said the players were wrong. I spent a long time figuring out it’s because I’ve forgotten to create a new list to store the random sequence instead of just printing a random sequence in the console display.
After finishing the logic of the game, I attempted to connect the sequence in word with the UI components. I was stuck again, I tried a lot with something like "if (randomSeq [0] == "red") {redObject.SetActive(true);}" or “public GameObject go;”. Yet, all of them didn’t work. With lots of misery, I finally came up with a Tetris tutorial that they use the game object with the image directly, instead of the word, as the item of an array. After that, the game objects were tagged with a tag of their colour. The list items of the tag colours were compared with the list items of player inputs to check if their input were correct.
After finishing the programming, a MakeyMakey kit was connected to the computer. The keys were remapped to fit our game. I tested if the current is strong enough to pass through a little gummy bear-shaped paper. Unfortunately, it’s not conducive. Therefore, I tried to clip a small piece of aluminium foil at the back of the paper. It became conductive after that.
I enjoyed the process of playing with the codes, manipulating the MakeyMakey kit as a medium to play a game with different objects. Also, thank Cindy for making the animation sprites for the game.
Reflection
I would like to make the player input visible as they pressed on the gummy bears of different colours. It would be clearer for the users if a gummy bear of the corresponding colour appears whenever they have pressed on them. Sadly, due to the time limit, I’ll leave it as an exercise for later practice.
References
Tetris tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5P8ohdxDjo
Product links:
Demo v01
https://youtu.be/VSg_f9E5rBg
Demo v02
https://youtu.be/tUxsPf9cv-k
https://youtu.be/GcmICdsbuRc
The Game Build for Mac: (need to restart the build for another trial)
instructions:
Press the buttons on keyboard
"R" for red bears
"B" for blue bears
"G" for green bears
https://drive.google.com/open?id=171FSFYqaSuU2IQ_xWxuuNWroTQOmRE71