Game Stations//
On the Beam Team Hub glitch site, you'll find a variety of content and resources that I brought together to offer the Beam Team while they are home during COVID-19.
On the Index page, you'll find images and GIFs of hand-made game controllers that they test-used to play Pac Man tournaments, and images of the Beam Team building sprites out of clay and constructing their final game stations (which they never had an opportunity to finish). All games and game stations were designed by students with the intention of creating positive interactive gaming experiences for all ages. They were challenged to incorporate a personal narrative or interest into their game and then design the specific ways that game-players physically interact with that interface.
Under PLAY OUR GAMES, you'll find links to a selection of the Beam Team Scratch games that were intended to be played within their game stations using Raspberry Pi's on a miniature screen.
Over the course of the 2019-2020 school year (through March), students learned how build mechanical controllers using copper tape and Hall Effect sensors, connect their games to an Arcade simulator using Arduino Leonardos, design and animate sprites using Sculpey, block-code Scratch games, and use drills, saws, and other hand tools to build unique physical infrastructure.
If we had continued our projects, they would have learned how to connect their games to motors, LEDs, fans, vibration motors and other outputs using the Raspberry Pi GPIO in order to build interactive elements into the game experience.
Emoti-Con 2020 has ended and leaving new reactions is now off.
I loved seeing all the different materials used and the different game ideas. The passion and excitement are very clear! The projects were thoughtful and I appreciated the personalization.
I love how you are designing custom inputs for each game. I love that you are including gloves, big buttons and all sorts of different inputs, it's so important to think about how the player is going to interact with the game. I love the claymation sprites, they look amazing and are so unique. There's so much character in each of these games. Because they share the same clay sprite style it ties them together. I wish I could try playing these with your custom inputs. Well done!
Excellent teamwork on these! The games each have their own personality! There's so much joy in the clay characters. You all did a wonderful job experimenting with the elements of movement, character design, and music to create an experience. In building out the interactive elements in the future, I'd focus on what action you want to really connect the gamer to with their character. Maybe it's vibration when they jump or lights turning on as the music pitch goes up.
These projects were so exciting. It's clear it took a lot of teamwork and enthusiasm. I love looking at unfinished projects, the user gets to really see the hard work that went into them. The most important ingredient in these projects was passion, so keep that going.
These games are fun to play! It makes me want to learn how to make a game too. YEET!
Love the use of different materials and love how you could personalize each fabrication! GREAT JOB! Gran trabajo!
These interfaces are so beautiful, expressive and INNOVATIVE. I love how they physicalize the interaction with digital games and make you think different about your whole relationship to digital media. I just want to try them all out!
I like that they designed their characters with clay.
This is so cool! Great work! Wish I could play with these controllers.
What social issue could the Quench my thirst game be addressing?
