Final Team 3 Scaffolding: Concept Review

Jesse Smith and Michael Rowley

The games we chose to work on controllers for were League of Legends and Minecraft. 

https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us

League of Legends is a Massive Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game. Its most common controls are Q, W, E, R, D, and F for abilities. You use the mouse to aim your abilities and right-click to move your character to where your mouse pointer is. These mechanics require precise targeting of abilities, attacks, and movement. 

Minecraft is a sandbox survival and building game where players gather resources, build structures and items, and explore the world. Its most common controls are WASD or the arrow keys for movement, the mouse for aiming, both mouse buttons for mining, interacting, placing, and using objects, and certain buttons used for sneaking, sprinting, and opening the inventory. Numbers on the keyboard are usually used for selecting items; however, the wheel on the mouse can be used to scroll through the items. 

The mechanics could be expressed through an alternate controller to eliminate the use of two hands or stylize the gameplay for thematic purposes. We were most interested in the use of hand and finger gestures to interact with the game and using touchpads to give a different feeling than playing with a keyboard and mouse. We were also interested in making two separate devices interact to form a whole controller. 

Do our controller concepts make the gameplay mechanics feel better, or do they make gameplay too complicated? 

Which controller designs feel the most intuitive for new players?

Final Team 17 - Scaffolding: Concept Review

Resident Evil

Our motivation for working with the first Resident Evil game was that it employs a fixed camera mechanic, eliminating the need for us to include camera movement in our control scheme. The main mechanics of Resident Evil are exploring the mansion, finding items, and trying to survive the enemies. The player goes through different rooms collecting keys, weapons, and other items that help unlock new areas. You also have to be careful with things like ammo and healing items because they are limited. A lot of the game is about exploring, solving puzzles, and figuring out how to move forward while avoiding or fighting enemies. The core mechanics in Resident Evil might benefit from an alternative controller by making movement feel a little more intuitive. Resident Evil controls the player using a tank controller approach, so finding ways to make the player movement feel smoother could help. In Resident Evil, gestures are shown through the character’s actions. You move around, aim and shoot weapons, open doors, and pick up items. Even though it’s controlled with buttons, the game represents these actions as if you were actually performing them.

Slime Rancher 2

Our motivation for working with Slime Rancher was that it was a game familiar to us so we thought it might be easy to work with. The main mechanics of Slime Rancher are exploring, collecting slimes, and managing them on your ranch. The player uses the Vacpack to suck up slimes, food, and other items, and then shoot them back out into corrals. Feeding slimes makes them produce plorts, which can be sold for money to buy upgrades and expand the ranch. The core mechanics in Sime Rancher can benefit from an alternative controller by making the game more immersive. A controller that looks like the vac pac or another item in the game could help with that. In Slime Rancher 2, a key mechanical object in the game is the Vacpack, which works like a vacuum. Most actions in the game involve aiming it, sucking items toward you, and launching them somewhere else.

Peer Review Questions:

• Some of the designs use an accelerometer and a potentiometer for movement. Is there another way those could be used for movement or looking around besides just basic movement controls?
• In terms of input placement on the controllers, are there any inputs placed in a spot that does not feel intuitive?

Resident Evil Controller Designs

Slime Rancher 2 Controller Designs

Team 20 scaffolding

 

Binding of Isaac
1. flashlights connected to a balljoint with a lever on the other side. Each flashlight can look up down left and right controller movement and shooting directions. Using the color sensor the flashlight can be shown on different translucent parts to use items.


2. Two figures modeled after the guardian angel and demon baby that utilize gyro controls.

3. 
   Dance dance revolution pad

4. 
   Color card sensor, using the color sensor. Cards placed down will control what happens.

5. 
   2 potentiometers, 1 controls direction with 1 button to control movement going or not. and the
   other will be a selector, using the sound sensor to then use the selected, ie shoot bomb, or active
   item.

 

Sonic

6. 
   A pool table. Using color sensors, and on the pieces have different colors. One handles moving,
   one direction, and one to jump.

7. 
   Two tails tails as controls, one for direction, and the other for movement and jumping.

8. 
   
   Glove with rings that conduct electricity and a place to place your hand, the rings complete
   the circuits of which ever they are going to. So each finger would control moving left right and 

            jumping.

9. Same idea as the rings but with the chaos emeralds and using the color sensor, multiple
   can be placed at one. Will come with a mat to place them in.

10. A deck of cards, Sonic themed, using the color sensor which card you placed down correlates

             to a different action.

Binding of isaac

https://store.steampowered.com/app/113200/The_Binding_of_Isaac/

Binding of isaac is a very simple game that can get very deep but the core gaming stays the same, 1 joystick to move and 1 to shoot. And 3 buttons for active items and abilities. Knowing the control scheme is as simple as thiswe knew it would be great to make a controller for. I believe with how simple the control scheme is, it lets me be more creative in designing a controller and I can make it more fun. From the inquiry questions the question about simple controls and the one about how we can connect the controller to the narrative helped motivate us. 2 questions would be which seems more fun to play with, and a follow up is on that one which parts seems like a point of stress.

Sonic

origins.sonicthehedgehog.com

When considering games that we could possibly play we wanted to stick with games that were enjoyable but simplistic in their controls required, as to not create a controller outside of our technical reach. Sonics is a game that is timeless in its fun, built with a fast paced and entertaining gameplay loop, but highly simplistic in its control scheme. Sonic as a game primarily deals with jumping and running as you traverse through a stage and reach the end with your lives intact and time left remaining on the clock. Within each level their are multiple aspects that test and incorporate these mechanics such as jump, bounce pads, and enemies. I think that proving an interesting or more unique controller could provide an interesting challenger or new element to these classic controls reframing how the game is played. We didn't particularly use the inquiry questions to guide out motivations and development.

1. What additional elements of gameplay do you think were not considered in the controller?

2. What elements of their controller do you think may inhibit gameplay?

 

Team 8 Scaffolding Concept

 Games We Chose

Cooking Mama: Cooking Mama: Let's cook! - Apps on Google Play

Hidden Folks: Hidden Folks games

Our motivations for Cooking Mama include mostly nostalgia with a little bit of fun as we both enjoy this game. The core mechanics revolve mainly around a touch-based motion, just through a mouse. We think this touch-based mechanic can be implemented and improved through touch-based food utensils (ranging from cooking prep to final serving utensils). We really thought about games that don’t use WASD, and how we can physically make the game feel like you are actually cooking with Mama.

For Hidden Folks, we thought of a game that doesn’t have many inputs and is simple but fun/thought provoking, and it isn’t a game that many people may know about. The core mechanics involve looking around, zooming in/out, and clicking on objects to find them within the level, you can think of it like “Where’s Waldo” or “I Spy”. We figured this would be fun to express through different kinds of sight related objects and have more fun with the design considering there aren’t many inputs to worry about. Again, considering games without WASD movement, we also thought about how different objects can be used as a controller. We did go a little heavier into a sort of foot controller/aspects to give a new perspective with typical controllers.

Peer Review Questions

-        Is there anything in our designs you feel should be removed, added, or replaced?

-        Do you have any concerns about our designs potentially not meeting the final submission requirement in some way?

    Cooking Mama designs

Hidden Folks Designs

Scaffolding: Concept - Team 18

 Our team is exploring alternative controller designs for Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania and Buckshot Roulette.

Official sites:
• https://smb.sega.com/bananamania/
• https://mikeklubnika.itch.io/buckshot-roulette

 

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania is a physics-based puzzle platformer where players guide a monkey trapped inside a ball through obstacle-filled stages by tilting the level. The core mechanics revolve around balance, momentum, and precise movement. We chose this game because its central mechanic, tilting surfaces, naturally translates to a physical interface. An alternative controller could involve tilting a platform, rotating a sphere, or shifting one’s weight to simulate the act of balancing the ball through each stage. These physical interactions could make the player feel more directly responsible for the monkey’s movement.

 

Buckshot Roulette is a tense strategy game inspired by Russian roulette, where the player and a dealer take turns firing a shotgun loaded with a mix of live and blank shells. The core mechanics involve risk assessment, item usage, and psychological tension. We chose this game because its turn-based interactions could be expressed through tactile objects such as a rotating chamber dial, physical shell indicators, or lever-based triggers that heighten suspense.

Mechanical inspirations include motion controls, rotating dials, and lever mechanisms.

Questions for peer feedback:

1. Would a tilting platform or balance board give players enough precision for Super Monkey Ball levels?
2. For Buckshot Roulette, would physical props (like shell counters or levers) increase tension or make the gameplay feel slower?

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania

Buckshot Roulette