Progress for Interactive Prototype 3

Over the past few days I have been working on Interactive Prototype 3. I have been working on improving the game and redesigning the yoke.

New Yoke Design

After some troubles with the yoke during the testing session for Interactive Prototype 2, I have decided to redesign the yoke all together. I started by taking apart the original yoke handle and rebuilding from scratch. The first thing I did was figure out a way to securely place the shooting button inside the left column of the handle. From there I had built the right column of the handle symmetrically. Finally, I had to incorporate the new game button. The final result is below.

New yoke design

As you can see the new handle is much more smaller and compact. This design makes the handle very strong and durable.

The base has only slightly changed. The rotational joint is now much stronger. Detection rotation still uses the same method, but it has now been relocated closer to the joint. Additionally, the base also allows for cleaner wire redirection.

Modified base

Rotation detectors are moved closer to the joint

I believe this new design is much better than the old one. It should withstand the handling during the next testing session very well.

Game Improvements

For game improvements, I have changed a few things. Firstly, the secret word is now randomly chosen from an array of 24 words. Another major addition is that now the player has an ammo count. The player starts with 10 bullets and ammo boxes are dropped at random intervals by the aliens. These ammo boxes can be shot while they are falling. To refill their ammo, the player must allow the ammo boxes to fall down and they must collect them by colliding with it.

Game improvements include random words and an ammo count

A very useful improvement is the way that random letters are dropped. Now there is bias towards the correct letters which was a much-needed tweak. I have implemented this by adding a second timer which triggers the drop of a random CORRECT letter. A correct letter is one which is still left to guess to form part of the word. The frequency of the original timer has also been tweaked slightly so too many letters don't spawn in a short period.