Hugo Lucena, Renata Kuba, Sung Hoon Kim
Mine Race is game installation in which players race to each other to see who can get to the other side of a minefield first.
Description
Mine Race is a game played in pairs. Each plays need to memorize a sequence of steps to get to the other side of his/her board. Each board has 6 pairs of tiles to cross in order to get to the other side. For each pair of tiles there is a safe tile and one with a mine under it. If the player steps on a mine he will have to start the race from the beginning. By Stepping on the mines payers can memorise the position of the mines and advance further into the other side of the field.
The game creates engagement by making players compete with each other and deal with the doubt in taking the next step, both by not knowing what the next tile would have or by not trusting his/her own memory.
The boards are 28″ wide and 98″ long. They are composed by 13 digital switches made out of foam and conductive metal sheets. The switches are used to track the players position. When a player steps on one of the switches its closes a circuit and sends the information to a Arduino Mega. The arduino then sends the position to a Processing sketch in which the game interface and rules were designed. The interface was made so it would be displayed by a projector and match the fiscal tiles on the ground using projection mapping. The projector were placed in front of the users so their shadows wouldn't be cast over the interface in front of them. Also audio and visual feedback were also used to aid the gameplay experiênce.