FINAL

Hand-it: Motion-tracking Rhythm Game

Research Slides: PDF

We decided we would create a project that would take all the positive aspects of the games of its genre and combine them into one interactive rhythm game that we call “Hand It”. Instead of an interface with plain notes sliding across the screen we decided it’d be best if our game had a metaphor. We chose a space portal theme for the creation of galaxies. There are 4 separate scoring systems for each type of astronomical object being planets, moons, meteors, and stars. The more the player succeeds in capturing a type of note the more of that object will be in the galaxy.

The interface is designed to be as clear as possible to its purpose. There are no distractions in the background. It is always clear where the hands are on the screen and which hand corresponds to right and left: blue and red. Notes appear in the center of the screen and head towards 1 of the 4 corners of the screen to 4 different portals. The portals are placed in the corners rather than top, left, right, or bottom because it is easier for the hands to move into these quadrants. Aesthetically it’s designed to look like a vortex in space is spewing out materials and with their hands the player snatches up these materials to a rhythm. The scores for these materials are displayed neatly in their respective corners of the screen to give the feedback that the player is doing well or poorly with each quadrant. The lower the score in one quadrant the more attention should be paid there.

We had many sorts of inspirations to create this interactive rhythm game. We tried to mix in the best ideas from Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Para Para, and mainly the eye-toy from the Playstation 2, to create a completely original theme of rhythm game. The eye toy does utilize the user’s body movements to show results on a screen, so we decided to take it further and implement it into a rhythm game. This combination of genres was essentially a good way to go because it takes two elements of particularly popular and fun interactive games and expands on the main idea.

Video Documentation: