Species Hunt Minigame

Museum Age for Explorer Created work

Moderator: ERC Age Team

Re: Species Hunt Minigame

Postby Jennifer_P » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:18 pm

I think you misunderstood. The animals don't get turned on/off, the zones get turned on/off. The birds and lizards and unusual trees are always there. But your list will only flash for the viper goose if you have the Birds list.

Ahhh, I've got you now. Yes, that would be fine.

My thought there was in consideration of how dense the animals are in the Age. If theres an animal with a zone every 20 steps, your list will be flashing constantly, which is both counterproductive and just irritating. If you limit the zones which set off the list, then you know when it flashes, it's applicable to the hunt you are doing. I just don't want to be walking through the Age and see that thing blinking at me every 2 seconds. That was kind of what I was getting at...

Heh, I can just see the player walking along, enjoying the croaking frogs, and chirping birds, the gurgle of water, and the solitude of nature when suddenly their cell phone goes off! :P

My thought there was in consideration of how dense the animals are in the Age. If theres an animal with a zone every 20 steps, your list will be flashing constantly, which is both counterproductive and just irritating. If you limit the zones which set off the list, then you know when it flashes, it's applicable to the hunt you are doing. I just don't want to be walking through the Age and see that thing blinking at me every 2 seconds. That was kind of what I was getting at...

Agreed; my concern with the zones is that assuming the list needs to be flashing in order for a player to be able to check off an animal, what about the cases in which a player can see an animal from a distance, and that distance is sufficiently great that it doesn't set off the flashing and thus the player isn't permitted to check the animal off? I would feel cheated if I actually saw one of the animals I was looking for, but wasn't allowed to check it off just because the animal detector wasn't flashing... :|

Actually, the flashing bothers me for another reason too, because the alarm changes the nature of the gameplay from walking around trying to spot animals to walking around listening for the beeper to go off. In short, looking around and searching carefully for the animal are rendered unnecessary with the help of the beeper; and then, the best strategy for winning is to cover as much ground as possible by running and listening for the beeper to go off. The game essentially changes from "I spy" and "Where's Waldo" in which the player has to look carefully around, to a marker hunt where a player has to cover a lot of ground but doesn't need to observe his surroundings at all until his KI starts to flash. Imagine doing a "Where's Waldo" book with the help of a little device that beeps whenever Waldo is within one inch of its sensor and you'll understand the change in gameplay. /shrug This doesn't mean the game wouldn't be fun or anything, but it does kind of circumvent a lot of the required mental activity on the part of the player. :P
Jennifer_P
 
Posts: 729
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:54 pm

Re: Species Hunt Minigame

Postby Jennifer_P » Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:21 am

Well, I put a post up in the Programmers forum (http://forum.guildofwriters.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2413) asking for some advice over here, so we'll see how that goes. :)
Jennifer_P
 
Posts: 729
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:54 pm

Re: Species Hunt Minigame

Postby Jennifer_P » Mon Nov 10, 2008 4:58 pm

Okay, looking at our options here, as discussed in the thread linked in the previous post:
1. Looks like a journal with checkable pages is going to be too hard to implement.
2. A GUI screen sort of like the KI is likely going to be possible (it is possible right now for Paradox), but right now there are no buttons, sliders, or text for it--which basically means that a.) we need to fit all of the information on one GUI window, or else have multiple, but separate windows and b.) No clickable checkboxes now.

We can, at least, store individual player data in the chronicle folder (see here for details: http://forum.guildofwriters.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=800 ) The bad news is, we might be the first ones to do that. O.o

A third option we might try is to do something like Cyan did with the Bahro pillars. Every time you complete one of the Ages, a pillar changes to mark your progress. We could similarly allow the player to change something in the Age to mark their progress. Just an example to demonstrate what we could do in this direction--there could be a picture of each animal on a wall, and a clickable that rotates when touched. On one side the clickable could read "Not found" in red and on the other side, "found" in green. The player could rotate the clickable as they desired to show the correct setting for each animal.

So what do you guys want to shoot for--a piece of paper/holographic screen GUI, which we could hopefully implement sometime in the future, something along the lines of a Bahro pillar thing, or???
Jennifer_P
 
Posts: 729
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:54 pm

Re: Species Hunt Minigame

Postby Jennifer_P » Sat Nov 15, 2008 10:37 pm

Okay, how about if we go on the assumption for now that we're going to use some sort of holographic interface? (And we can worry about the checkboxes later.)
Jennifer_P
 
Posts: 729
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:54 pm

Re: Species Hunt Minigame

Postby Metabasalt1 » Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:26 pm

The minigame that you are discussing already exists. I created a game like that using fossils, but I did not know how to do it in Uru, so I used the Game development kit from microsoft (GDK). The game has proximity sensing, so as the player approaches the fossils object, a jpeg image appears in the top of the screen. There is a total of 7 fossils you can find in the game. The game also includes a gps heads up display in the lower right corner of the screen, which gives the actual latitude and longitude of the location. I used it with my students in my classes last year and they thoroughly enjoyed it. You can download it from my website: www.ferrum.edu/geology. Click on the virtual field trip and fossil hunt links. The game is in the form of a standalone executable.
Metabasalt1
 
Posts: 68
Joined: Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:03 pm

Re: Species Hunt Minigame

Postby Jennifer_P » Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:36 am

Ah yes, that game is indeed much the same as our minigame. Everyone loves a good treasure hunt! :)
Jennifer_P
 
Posts: 729
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:54 pm

Previous

Return to ERC Age

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests

cron