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3JASON OCCHIPINTIITGM 705: INTERACTIVE DESIGN + MEDIA APPLICATIONSSAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGNSCAD PROFESSOR: David MeyersFALL QUARTER, 2010

PROJECT A, PART IV

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PART I: PROPOSALDESIGN STATEMENTThe purpose of this project will be to create a game that forces its players to not rely at all on any of their visual senses. Too often in our world, we are bombarded with visual stimuli, whether it be video games, advertisements, television programs etc. This visual stimulus often completely ignores our other senses, like our senses of touch.

GAME RULESThis tactile game will take the form of a memory game. This game is for two players. One player will be blindfolded, while the other keeps a tally of the game score.

Player 1: BlindfoldedPlayer 2: Non-blindfoldedThe game begins when one Player 1. puts on a blindfold, while the other player places ten cards in two rows of five, face down. Player 1. will begin turning cards over, two at a time. Each card has a texture square on its underside. Player 1 will use their sense of touch to feel a 2x2” square that will contain a texture (ex. Rug, plastic, sand paper, cloth, etc.). Player 1. will then attempt to use their memory, to match this texture to the same texture on one other card. Player 1. will have up to five errors before the game ends. Points are scored by adding numbers written on successfully matched cards. Player 2. shall record the score, and notify Player 1. of errors in their attempt to match cards textures. This game card will also have a picture under the texture. This way, they can see how well they score using their visual senses, vs. using only touch.

TARGET AUDIENCE + MOTIVATIONOur Audience for this game will be people who don’t want to rely on their visual senses to play a game and have fun, or those who are curious to see how their acute their non-visual senses are. More specifically however, I believe this will have good applications as a game for children. It would be helpful to teach children (in our world of hyper-exposure to visuals) that there are more senses than just sight and sound. This game could also have broader reaching implications for the field of psychology, and human effectiveness. It could help researchers find out how people’s spatial reasoning are effected with sight is removed from a test.

2Sandpaper

Texture Square

Texture Title

Point Value

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PART II: FURTHER DEVELOPMENTOVERVIEWI have begun to conceptualize the general look and feel of this game, as well as the game playing surface. The game will feature two players, and follow this series of steps:

Step 1. Player 1 Blindfolds him/herself. Player 2 places cards in ridged playing surface face down.

Step 2. Player 1 begins taking two cards at a time, trying to match cards via tactile senses.

Step 3. If the cards are a match, then the player scores the points listed on the card. Player 1 will then have a chance to guess what the surface they felt was, for an extra listed point value. They have one hint, listed on the playing card, which Player 2 can read out loud.

If the cards are not a match, then they are placed back on the board face down. Player 1 has five chances to match all the cards before he/she loses.

ClueThis texture belongs to a material that is used to smooth surfaces.

+25 Points

Text

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: Sand P

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ClueThis texture belongs to a textile that can be natural, or artificial, and is typically woven together.

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loth+50 Points

ClueThis texture belongs to a material that composes the boxes we use.

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Texture: Plastic

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Ridged Playing Surface, for playing card placement

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PART III: TESTING PHASEOVERVIEWFor this round of testing, I decided to make a scaled-back game, because I hadn’t finished creating all of the game cards yet. The original game calls for a total of twelve cards (six matching pairs), with five chances to match all of the cards. For the prototype, I created a total of eight cards (four matching pairs) and a game board to accommodate the full twelve. The game board itself featured a raised area for game cards to be placed. I learned a few things as I let my test subjects of various ages play the game. First of all, this game would probably be inappropriate for a player under 7-8 years of age. I played this game with a child aged 5, and she quickly lost interest. Whether or not she understood the rules completely, was cheating, or has a lower attention span than the rest of her demographic is open to debate. As I worked with older children, I found that the general consensus was that they would prefer to have a blindfold, so they wouldn’t be tempted to open their eyes, even a tiny bit. I also found that the game took longer than I expected it to with the younger children (far longer than a minute). Times were lower with older test subjects. One of the major problems that I noticed with the testing of this game was that mostly all players were having problems grabbing the cards. I talked to my testers and she said she became frustrated by the fact that it took her so long to grab a hold of the cards when they were placed on the board. From my observations, many of the testers either had problems grabbing the cards, or they ended up knocking the cards out of their intended slots and pushing other cards around. I think that this is natural, as a lot of how we pick up and handle objects has to do with sight. Making someone use his or her

tactile senses completely might be a little off-putting. I think that a possible solution to this problem would be to add some kind of raised surface to the cards themselves, maybe bending part of the cards surface upward (making a “lip” on the edge of the paper that can be grabbed).

DESIGN/CONSTRUCTION OVERVIEWFor the purposes of this prototype, I used 105lb card stock with texture surfaces that were approximately 1”x1”. Elmer’s multi-purpose glue was used to adhere the texture to the card surface. This became problematic, as I believe the glue’s presence of the surface of the card with the texture made the card stock warp over time. I would like to try using 3M mounting adhesive in place of the glue. I think that this may solve the problem of warping.Construction of the game board was probably the most irritating process of this phase. Every component had to be measured *perfectly* for the slots that the cards would fit. In fact, I miscalculated a few measurements on my first game board, causing me to throw have to throw it away.

FOR NEXT TIMEFor my finished concept, I will work on the craft on the game board itself (sand and blacken edges), as well as the overall presentation. I will also partially redesign the cards to accommodate a lip for easy lifting

RAW TEST DATASUBJECT NAME (AGE) TIME TRIES WIN/LOSS

Angelina (5)Jonathan Thomas (10)Carly (14)Elizabeth (28)Peter (31)

N/A107 Seconds84 Seconds64 Seconds68 Seconds

N/A5433

N/ALossWinWinWin

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Empty surfaced card placed in game board slot Game board under construction

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Plastic and cardboard texture cards Cloth texture card

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PART IV: UPDATED PROPOSAL & FINAL PIECEOVERVIEWThe final product features a cardboard game board with a tactile surface, as well as a blindfold, and 12 original game cards. Additionally, game expansions will be produced, featuring additional textures based on themes. One expansion has been created to go with the initial game rollout, entitled: “Foods.” This expansion features various dry food items that the player may be familiar with such as rice, oatmeal, breadcrumbs, pasta, etc.

UPDATED DESIGN STATEMENTThe purpose of this project will be to create a game that forces its players to not rely at all on any of their visual senses. Too often in our world, we are bombarded with visual stimuli, whether it be video games, advertisements, television programs etc. This visual stimulus often completely ignores our other senses, like our senses of touch.

UPDATED TARGET AUDIENCE + MOTIVATIONOur Audience for this game will be people who don’t want to rely on their visual senses to play a game and have fun, or those who are curious to see how their acute their non-visual senses are. More specifically however, I believe this will have good applications as a game for children. It would be helpful to teach children (in our world of hyper-exposure to visuals) that there are more senses than just sight and sound. This game could also have broader reaching implications for the field of psychology, and human effectiveness. It could help researchers find out how people’s spatial reasoning are effected with sight is removed from a test.

T MMatch

Texture

Vector Game Board Concept

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UPDATED FINAL GAME RULESGame includes two players: Player 1 (Blindfolded) and Player 2 (Scorekeeper)

1. Player 1 puts the included blindfold on. 2. Player 2 sets up the game board and places the cards

face-down in a random assortment. 3. Player 1 attempts picks up cards, two at a time, using

his/her sense of touch to identify, and match cards. 4. Player 2 will confirm whether or not the cards match. 5. If the cards match, Player 1 receives a point value

located at the top of the game card. Player 1 can attempt to score extra points by naming the texture contained on the card.

6. If requested, Player 1 may receive a hint contained on the game card read aloud once by Player 2.

7. Player 1 has one chance to guess the name correctly. If he or she guesses incorrectly, Player 1 begins his/her next turn, continuing the matching game.

8. Player 1 has five separate tries to match all cards. If he/she fails to match all the cards within the allotted turns, Player 1 loses. Clue

This texture belongs to a material that is used to smooth surfaces.

+25 Points

Text

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: Sand P

aper+50 Points

ClueThis texture belongs to a textile that can be natural, or artificial, and is typically woven together.

+25 Points

Text

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: C

loth+50 Points

ClueThis texture belongs to a material that composes the boxes we use.

+25 Points

Text

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: C

ard

board+50 Points

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Vector Game Card Concept

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Game board with cards face-down

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Game board without cards face-up

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Game card/board close-up

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Game Board, original cards, food-based expansion cards, and blind-fold

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Food-based expansion cards

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Game board without cards