Category: recent

indiegogo
General, recent

Braincademy live at indiegogo

As some of you know I have been working for over a year on my project Braincademy. Initially, it was ‘only’ a part of my Master’s thesis, but after the CeBIT, I knew that this application should not disappear in the drawer. So I decided to participate on a contest that was announced in partnership with IndieGoGo and Google on entrepreneurship.de. Objective of the current phase of the competition is to find sponsors to help raise money to put the idea into action. Google sponsors the best of the successful projects by doubling the collected seed capital. Now it’s up to you. If you can not donate anything be so […]

future
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 18: Konzept zum schulischen Einsatz und Ausblick

In summary it can be said that the objectives of the work have been achieved, although not all planned components of the application were implemented. Therefore this elements had to be added to the actual game before useing it in schools. This includes not only the creation of the particular subject-appropriate questions further a training mode is needed for the practical use.However, the quiz show is already fully implemented in the current version.   Concept for schools Since the application was developed primarily for use in schools, a concept of how the application will be used there is essential. As described previously the game is a “drill and practice”-application. Since […]

evaluation
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 17: Evaluation und Einsatz der Anwendung

The aim of this work has been to develop an edutainment application for natural user interfaces that can be used in the classroom and at home. They should encourage children and young people on a funy way to test their newly acquired knowledge. Care was taken that the game motivates learners by appealing animations, cut scenes and mini-games.   Since it is important in the learning process that the learner feels comfortable, the actual knowledge query was packed in a trivia game. Thus, the player does not notice that he just answered questions that could be used ​​just as well in an exam.   General Due to time constraints, unfortunately, […]

minigames
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 16: Vorstellung der Mini-Spiele

Mini-games within the application help to maintain a large varriety in the entertainement process. They challenge the player in other fields than answering questions. Through the various systems on which the application will be able to run, every mini-game itself determines what requirements it has to be playable on the current system Before the individual mini-games are developed, these were roughly designed in the storyboard phase.   Catch All and Catch Selected The games “Catch All” and “Catch Selected” are two mini games that do not work with touch input, but are controlled by the motion detection using a webcam. Both games are consistent with the concepts of “moving school” […]

flow
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 15: Spielablauf und Spielphasen

The development of the component of the Games is one of the most elaborate parts of the application. So during the analysis and design phase of the game a flow chart from the players perspective is created (see right). After choosing the ammount of players in the round, the general procedure is explained to them, after which a short intro is played before the question shows up. After the fourth and eighth round of questions a mini-game starts in order to create variety in the game. After the second mini-game the high score is shown and the game is over.   As the players point of view is different from […]

xml
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 14: Wissensbasis und Fragenauswahl / Arbeiten mit XML

The knowledge- or question-base is at the heart of the program. Here are all questions and answers listed by category. Because it should not be required to create audio files for each of these databases, the first lines of the XML file tells the program if the questions are read aloud in the game or only appear textually.                 true      …   (Note: The application and the decision to record all audio parts manually now are six months old. If I would create this app now, I would try a different approach and fall back to a TTS-API, such as the […]

audio
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 13: Das Soundmanagement

The sound design has a large share of the overall impact of games. Thus, the right music and a properly placed sound-effect subconsciously contribute to the current situation. The desired effect is often achieved only through the interaction of images and sound.   Besides the host of the application, who has only a accustic appearance, several effects and music parts are played, for example if the correct answer to a question is given. In order for this sounds to proceed simultaneously, but individually controllable, music, sound effects and speech are played on each separate audio channel. Through the use of channels we also ensure that only one voice file, per […]

library
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 12: Die Grafikbibliothek

Since graphical objects, such as the buttons on the menus and background images, are used multiple times and in different areas in the program a central location that provides the graphics is essential. The so-called library can be created in Flash decoupled from the actual project and edited independently of the program. Libraries in Flash are marked ba the extension *.swc. These also include, in addition to graphics, functions which are already compiled. By providing compiled objects the calculation. In practice the separation of code and graphical elements are used to that graphic designers and programmers can work simultaneously on a project. Once the graphics are changed they can be […]

storyboard
Making the Game, recent

Making The Game – Teil 11: Das Storyboard

After the objectives of the application and conditions are set, the storyboard is created. This describes the general structure and flow of the game. Since this application is a complex trivia game with various mini-games, the planning of the storyboard is divided into two phases: the rough concept, in which the general sequence and basic structures are determined, and the detailed design, in which the different sections are discussed in detail.     Rough concept As part of the rough concept, basic structure and procedures of the game are outlined. In addition, creative and media decisions for future action will be determined.   As an example of creating the rough […]

remote
Lab, recent

Spiel- und Fernsteuerung via Smartphone

Almost everyone had already a controller of a WII in hand or at least knows how to use it. With simple hand movements, transfered to the virtual character, this generation of games is controlled.   What works only with games of this specific console is is by principle also possible with other devices. So I got the idea to use the accelerometer of a smartphone, in order to achieve the same functionality and to control a game on my local machine.     Because I’m thinking about including this type of control into a larger project, I will not publish the corresponding code. But basically there are the computer that […]