Progress Report - 10/2/14

Problem: We spent too much time focusing on biofeedback and not enough time on the actual video game.

Solution/Progress: Over the course of this week, our team has been working on creating a design for the video game that we plan on making. We first decided on the genre and the storyline of the game. We decided that just like "Nevermind", we are going to make it a horror game in order to make use of the biofeedback. We have also decided that the game will take place in a labyrinth, where there are going to be monsters waiting at every corner. In the beginning of the game, the player will have the option of choosing their weapon, varying from a sword to magic. Then we thought about the implementation that biofeedback will have on the gameplay. We decided that the emotions picked up using MindWave, the biofeedback mechanism we decided on using, will determine the difficulty of the monsters. If the player is scared/panicked, the monsters will increase in power, therefore making it more difficult for the player. However, if the player learns to calm him or herself down, then the monsters will become easier to kill. Depending on other emotions that are picked up, there will be power drops that will help the player navigate their way through the maze. We still have yet to determine the levels of the game and the actual animation of the maze, but we feel that we have made great progress.

                                                           Inspiration for Labyrinth 

Plan: For next week, we have decided to divide the work. I am going to work on the design of the game. This includes the animations and the gameplay. Helana will experiment with coding and programming. She will also decide which coding program to use. Lastly Ryan will be doing more research on biofeedback so that we can understand how MindWave works.