Yeti Escape - Motion Sensor Game

OVERVIEW

Project Brief

This is a University design brief from 2019, the brief was to develop designs for experiential projects that extend the concept of user interaction beyond the mouse-keyboard interface. As this is a module from 2 years ago it won’t be as detailed as others on my site and I will only show the finished product.

The Goal

My goal for this module was to create a game that could be played using hand gestures.

Tools

Adobe Illustrator, Unity, Arduino

View my full design process: Yeti Escape Design Document

The code behind the game

I was able to make this game possible through the use of 3 software, there were Arduino, Ardity and Unity.

The Arduino has an UltraSonicSensor and this is able to measure the distance of your hand to the sensor, the Arduino also three buttons. Anything connected to the Arduino can be turned into serial print numbers on my laptop. These numbers would then go through Ardity and into Unity.

Here the serial print numbers could be read by Unity and cause changes in the game. This is how a person could push a button to select which character they wanted, and how raising their hand up and down would cause the character to jump. Below are some examples of the code used.

Motion Sensor Games

My goal was to create a game that was accessible to people with limited mobility issues. I wanted a game that could be played with a simple hand movement rather than precise clicking on a controller. I also wanted the design to reflect this, it had to be simplistic and appeal to all ages.

Here is a video that shows the game in action as well as how it works.

The design brief was ‘to develop designs for experiential projects that extend the concept of user interaction beyond the mouse-keyboard interface’ and I met this by creating a motion-controlled game.

Instead of using a keyboard or mouse, the user would use the buttons to select their game character and use an up/down hand motion to control the game character. This also allows people with mobility issues to play the game, and if I could develop this module further I would focus on conducting research around accessibility.