3. “EYE CANDY”
Sometimes have sound
Mobile
No attention is needed (if pro)
Only the sighted can play
Mild individual challenge
Repetitive and less random
Involves scoring
Not complicated
Easy to interact with
6. THESIS STATEMENT
Casual games – primarily visual based – in addition to be entertaining, are
used as fidgeting strategies to focus attention, but sometimes the user
cannot play with such games because the visual sense should be
engaged in others tasks or is missing. Through my expansive research
and study, I have designed a series of interactive, casual games that do
not require vision to be played and can therefore be experienced by both
the blind and the sighted.
7. BRAIN DOODLING FOLLOW THE RHYTHM 1
Feedback
Set up
+ Level of Difficulty
Self-programmable
Needs attention
“It is cool to visualize how your brain works” Ava, 27
FOLLOW THE RHYTHM 2
+
An additional component on the head
Randomness comes from the brain
Only two stages (levels): Fast and Slow
Pace of the vibration depends on meditation/
attention level of the brain
8. Fun aspect of games
Haptic Technology
Tactile elements
Proximities and scales
9. JOY BUZZER IDEAS TACTILE ANGRY BIRD
CATCH THE BUGS TACTRIS
10. Fun and games
Fun is the great motivator
Conflict/competition/challenge/opposition
Interaction
Story
Goals and objectives
Outcome and feedback
“Eye Candy” games
13. HERE JOY BUZZER THERE
HERE THERE HERE THERE
HERE THERE HERE THERE
HERE THERE HERE THERE
14. “Really fun”
“Confusing”
“Calling and confirmation should be separated
from the actual fidgeting”
“It’s like words with friends”
“Familiar size like an iphone”
JOY BUZZER
15. What I learned
Fun is by scoring and challenges
The sighted needed less complexity at first to
get used to the game
The blind played very easily and enjoyed
The sighted were not as good as the blind
Memory (attention) is involved: not a fidget
An app?
Good morning everyone, my thesis’s title is Tactris (Casual Non-Visual Games). \n
In the virtual world We’re capable to go anywhere and do anything.. that’s fantastic and very exciting. but my main concern as a designer has always been what if the visual sense is not available or someone is blind? when a blind person or someone whose eyes are engaged in other tasks touches the screen, it’s like touching a piece of glass.. There’s nothing behind.. \nBeing in touch with blind people, made me think about what I can do for them.. I chose designing games as a starting point \nBlind people DO play video games but with audio sense only... \nI found out that there are some kinds of games that the sighted can play almost every where.. Those games are called casual games... \nbut what are casual games? \n\n\n
Casual games can have any type of gameplay, and fit in any genre. They are typically distinguished by their simple rules and lack of commitment required in contrast to more complex hardcore games.\nPacman and tetris are the best examples of these games\nCasual gamers are typically older than traditional computer gamers, and more often female, over 74%. \n\n
Casual gamers (including myself) play on their cellphones or computers in almost every situation: while in the class, attending a lecture, talking on the phone, talking with friends and many more... But because the eyes are engaged in playing such games.. it may be perceived that the person is not paying attention. \n
But why do we play casual games? because it’s a fidgeting strategy for our brains to focus. Fidgeting is a rhythmic sensory stimulation and it’s directly connected to our senses. experts suggest some strategies for each of the senses to fidget and focus. As a visual strategy, they suggest to play with casual games on for example, Nintendo platform or cellphones to be able to focus. \n
Now, here’s my thesis statement: Read from the Screen\n
last semester, I made some games, tested them on the users and got some feedback. I mostly focused on the fidgeting aspect of such games. \n
After that I started to do more research on: read from the screen\n\n
Moving forward, I designed some tactile only games and tested on the users. Tactile only, because I found out that the only sense that could be engaged in the situations I had in mind, is the touch sense. Specifically for the blind that perceive their distant surroundings by their hearing sense. \n
I understood that games can be fun because: read from the screen\nThe fourth game that I made was for testing two things: scoring and the social aspect of fidgeting.\nI also had this hypothesis that the casual non-visual games, can’t be social, otherwise, they will engage the user’s attention more than a fidget should. \n
This game’s emphasize was on scoring which I believe is a very important element in fun and excitement of the games. I studied how tactile feedback works and how I can implement one/two of them in my game.\nJoy Buzzer was based on rhythm. \n
\n
Here’s the flow chart of the game. As you saw, there’s a call and confirmation (handshaking) on each round and then a 4 beat rhythm is played by one of the player and the other should resemble that rhythm. Each round has it’s own scoring which would be shown by a tactile scoring indicator. \n
I tested this game on 5 sighted people and they said: From the screen\nI also tested this game on 5 blind people. They really liked the game and they suggested me to make an app and if it’s just another electronic device, they won’t pay for it. They thought it was like morse code. this device actually can be considered as a tactile communicator between two people. exactly like morse code. \n
\n
Size of the game: how big or small they should be for a merely tactile game.. When we want to silently read something from our iphone or tablet, our eyes can see the page at once. So we don’t need to move our eyes drastically to see all the details on the screen. With the following game, I wanted to test the users’ tactile sense behavior in bigger sizes. \n\n\n
I made an analog version of catching the bugs (or ant smasher)... I got some creepy hexabugs and put some obstacles on the play ground. The goal of the game was to catch as much bugs as possible within a range of time. I also wanted to test the fun aspect of the game, here. It was not related to fidgeting at all and I just wanted to push all the boundaries and see what will happen. the balls and non-related objects were obstacles that if the player catches them, he/she will lose the game. \nThis game was very challenging for me to manage to do all the things at once. \nThe players would be blind folded and I gave them a set of headphones to cover their ears while a pretty loud action music was being played. I also tested this game without covering the ears but the noise of the bugs vibrating, was too distracting and the players would use their hearing sense only, instead of their touch sense. \n
R said: “I had the freedom to touch wherever I could. that made it easy.. I was looking to feel them. It would have been more challenging if it was bigger.”\nS said: “The bugs were very creepy. the game was really good fun. I couldn’t tell what was going on, I was just feeling stuff with my hands.”\nT said: “I would hear them over the music I was doing it based on sound and vibration. The bugs were not a nice thing to be holding.” \nand B said: “it was harder than I thought. The port seemed a lot bigger with the music and not being able to see.” \nWhat I learned:\nthey were playing by their multi senses: hearing sense is definitely involved\nTextures should be appealing\n\n
\n
After those games, It was time to go back to fidgeting. I made a little frame work for myself to start ideating and designing new games. \n
I designed a lot of games but there was a very BIG challenge for me: Refreshable tactile display. All of the games that I could think of needed a refreshable tactile display to be interactive, otherwise, they would be toys. Therefore, I did some expanded research about the refreshable tactile displays in the market or the ones that are now in R&D phase. \n
After that research, I thought for my games I don’t need to be worried a lot now about the technology and I just need to implement the games and reach to frameworks for the casual tactile games and then when the best technologies are out there, they can be implemented very easily. \n
The current game that is almost finished works with 16 solenoids. It is absolutely tactile and it’s like tetris. The goal of this game is to prevent all the blocks to rise up. The game starts by a random block rising up and the player should attack that block by pushing the corresponding button three times, which serves as a fidgeting tool. If he/she fails to do that on time, another block will rise up and the game continues till all the blocks rise up. When the game is over, some solenoids will go up and down a few times to give the user the feed back that the game is over. \n
I can actually implement so many new game scenarios on this device. I’ve made the full functional prototype and I’m going to test it on the blind and the sighted to get their feedback. \n
I was thinking of two options until this semester ends: either making other scenarios for the current game platform (TACTRIS), or I have one more idea to make a tactile version of angry birds and because of the time left, I may be able to only show it in the exhibition on a poster or something like that....\n