U.F.O. Bellies is a 4-player competitive co-op game, that challenges the players reactions on both physical and psychological levels
U.F.O. BELLIES has been selected to showcase in ALT.CTRL.GDC 2017(Game Developers Conference)
Gameplay
How to play the game
Wear the “Bellies”
There are two teams with two players on each side, (4 players in total) and each one of the players wear one giant belly that acts as a game controller.
Match the color
There are three primary color pads on each of the belly. The game requires the team members to match the color on the bellies with the color of the word on the screen instead of the name of the color. There are six different colors: red, yellow, blue, and three possible combinations of them- if the color of the word is purple,
Bump into each other
The two players have to bump red(blue) with blue(red).
How to win the game
Two players have to collaborate and hit the right color of the belly to match the color of the word as soon as possible. The quicker team that gets 20 levels wins.
Psychology theory behind the game
U.F.O. Bellies uses the famous Stroop Effect -- if the name of a color is shown in a color that's not matching the name, it takes us longer, and we are more likely to make mistakes than when the color matches the name.
GENRE Experimental, Physical Game
YEAR October, 2016
ROLE Game Designer, Developer(Processing+Arduino)
TEAM Miyeon Kim (Art, Processing), Xiaomeng Tang (Fabrication, Animation), Xianghan Ma (Fabrication)
CREDIT Henry J. Lam
Design and Development Process
Game Mechanics Design
First game idea: A color matching game with awkward physical movement - “belly” bumping.
Our initial goal
We want to use the game rule as a “safe environment“ for people to do silly actions without feeling embarrassed, and possibly create some interesting and funny movements along the way. We landed at bumping virtual bellies.
To add a little friction to make bumping bellies hard, we thought of something on the intellectual level, but not too hard. We landed at color matching.
Second Iteration: Using “belly” bumping color to match the words, and see who gets the higher score.
The Problem with the first idea
COLOR ==> COLOR. If we already have the color block on the bellies, and just present the same color block for color matching, the challenge will be too easy.
Solution
COLOR ==> WORDS. (We then thought of using words instead of direct color, so it will add one more layer)
Third Iteration: Using belly to bump colors to match the words(the words themselves have different colors)
The problem remains: the challenge is still too easy after our quick testing
I added Stroop Effect to increase the challenge, Stroop Effect is a famous cognitive psychology phenomenon, it’s a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task.
Quick prototype and A/B Testing
We made quick rough prototypes using boxes, to test
1) The second and third ideas, to see if the which challenge level is appropriate.
We also made some other words like Indigo/Oatmeal on the second color list(third image) to test the constraint.
2) If we should use time as a constraint or how many colors we matched correctly as the constraint.
We eventually decided to go with the third idea and use time as the constraint.
We also did more user testing after this to make the decision on progressing the game only when the players match the color right and the appropriate time to finish the game.
Game Controller Design & Development
When the game mechanics are almost done, I started to figure out how to build the game controller. I encountered a lot of challenges during the design and development stage.
Design Goal 1: In order for players to move around freely, we don’t want the controller to be wired.
Design Goal 2: The bellies have to be durable so that it doesn’t break easily during bumping
We decided to use fabric to make the belly and Bluetooth to connect our controller to the screen. Use Arduino to collect data, and transmit it to Processing on the computer via Bluetooth.
Challenge 1: How to detect if it’s different color bumps
Challenge 2: Choose the right sensor
I tried to use different kinds of sensors, but none of them works as we wanted.
Use conductive fabric and resistors - without any sensors
After consulting with our game design faculty, we decided on this simplest solution.
I figured out the mechanics by drawing, prototyping, and testing. I tested out different resistors to calculate the increasing resistance, I wanted to make sure they have enough gap in between so they won’t interfere with each other. I built the Arduino and welded them while my team members built the bellies.
Screen Design & Development
The problem we encountered with the Bluetooth and Processing was combining two teams’ results into one screen. In our demo video, we used two computers to show the scores, we can’t compare which team win in that way.
I solved it by using two types of Bluetooth and sending data in different serial ports, designed the split-screen and game flow for two teams.
Thanks for reading