Roadkill is a Kinect-controlled game that mimics Frogger. The player must successfully cross the street by moving forward and side-to-side to avoid cars and make their way to the goal. Players can flail their hands to try and get cars to slow down. Some cars such as taxi cabs will not slow down. Levels will scale by  the number of lanes and the speed of traffic (i.e. 2 lane road vs. 8 lane highway)

Spark is a king-of-the-hill type of game in which players must either remain the last one standing, or be the first to deplete their bar. The game is played with the Makey Makey, where all players stand on a conductive pad which represents a key. Players interact with the game by touching another conductive object on a table. This closes the loop and counts as a button press.

Players can deplete their bar by being the only player pressing the button. If another player is also pressing a button, a circle grows from the middle and will eliminate players as it grows beyond them. Touching another person’s skin while they are touching the button will also count as 2 button presses.

Download source and compiled versions here

Requirements:

• 1 Moderator
• 6+ Players
• Open Space to jump around

Description

Angry Mob is a turn-based strategy combat game inspired by Ninja. Players begin as Civilians in a circle standing at arms length, then take turns attempting to to tag other players’ hands in order to build their Mob. Civilians that tag other Civilians become Mob Leaders. Civilians that have been tagged become Rioters and must follow the Mob Leader’s orders. The goal of the game is to be the sole Mob Leader and control everyone

Player Types

The Civilian

• Vulnerable to all other players
• Can attack Mob Leaders and other Civilians
• Cannot attack Rioters

The Rioter

• Crazed Citizens that have been persuaded to follow the orders of a Mob Leader
• Is invulnerable to Citizens and Mob Leaders
• Is vulnerable to enemy Rioters

The Mob Leader

• Converts Civilians into Rioters by tagging them
• Converts Mobs by tagging their Mob Leader
• Controls Rioters by giving verbal commands on his/her turn
• Is afraid of enemy Rioters and cannot attack them directly
• If Mob Leader is tagged, he loses his Rioters to the attacker, becomes a Civilian and is allowed 2 moves to run away (no attacking).
  

Gameplay

1. Players begin in a circle each standing at arm’s length away from each other
2. A random person is chosen by the Moderator to begin, and turns go clockwise around the circle
3. On their turn, each Civilian or Mob Leader is allowed to make one attack. This can involve the whole body.
4. Convert Civilians into your Rioters by slapping their hands. You must hold your position at the end of your movement.
5. Mob Leaders can also designate one person as a target for their Mob to attack on their turn. Civilians and Rioters tagged by Rioters are “jumped in” to the Mob Leader’s gang.
6. If you are attacked by another player, you may dodge (even if you’re a Rioter) but you cant move your feet.
7. As a Civilian (with no followers), if you’re tagged by another person, you become their Rioter. You can still dodge if attacked.
8. As a Mob Leader (with followers), if you’re tagged by another person, you lose all of your Rioters to the Attacking Mob and become a Civilian again. At that moment, you are allowed two consecutive moves to flee, but you cannot attack.
9. The game ends when all players are following one Mob Leader.

Play Testing

After playing Ninja last week, I was really inspired by the simplicity of the game mechanics, but was a little disappointed to see some players get knocked out of the game at the early stages. This idea played with the Power/Politics theme we were given last Wednesday and the game mechanics of Ninja. The overall goal was to add the element of totalitarianism to the game and to have players still be involved after being tagged.

We tested this game with 6 players on the grass on campus. Some early concepts had players mirror or shadow their leader’s movements from where they were standing, but with everyone in different positions it quickly became frustrating to execute the same movements in a timely manner. It was also frustrating to people that they didn’t have any choice points as a follower. After loosening up the constraints and simply having the leader designate a target, we allowed the followers to attack the target however they wished. This increased engagement and made the game much more fun for everyone.

The breakout mod I created starts with a single white ball bouncing around the screen. As it hits a brick, it spawns another ball and inherits the brick color. The brick then dies and becomes a mini ghost brick that follows the paddle around and haunts it. If the ball hits the paddle, it loses its color and turns white as it bounces back. The bricks eventually regenerate with a random color and after a few seconds, there are so many balls on screen that it turns into a piece of generative art.

Source Code and OSX App

Over this last weekend, I attended the City of Play Festival in downtown Pittsburgh. The festival included games of all types, ranging from physical games played on the streets to social games played with PS3 Move controllers.

My favorite of the games that I played was Zombie Ward.

Zombie Ward is a turn-based tag game played outside in an open area like a park. Scattered about are bags containing various power-ups.

Power-ups:

• Zombie Gun – An elastic band that is a one-time-use zombie killer. A zombie hit by one of these is permanently dead.
• Antidote – A ball which makes the owner immune to zombie attacks. As a an immune carrier, it is your responsibility to find the “secret lab” to mass produce a cure.

As a human, the goal of the game is to avoid zombies, find the “antidote” and bring it to the “secret lab.” As a zombie, your goal is expand your zombie army by tagging humans.

This game turned out so much more fun than I had initially thought it would be. We played with a group of about 35 people. The games started everyone in a circle with the moderator randomly choosing one person to be the first zombie.

From there the moderator calls out humans and zombies to take turns taking 1-2 steps (at the moderator’s discretion). This is where things get interesting. A degree of strategy is required to navigate the landscape without getting tagged (as a human) or letting any humans get away (as a zombie).

Things get really interesting towards the end of the game when the secret lab is found and everyone is making a mad dash for the lab with a horde of 30 zombies on their tail.

Being a game played in real life, it was much more thrilling to experience than a zombie video game. Best of all, because there isn’t any blood and gore, people of all ages can play. I would definitely play this game again.