Alien Invasion

Alien Invasion is an exercising game to shoot wicked aliens.

Story Line

A space police regularly patrol the space in order to fight off the wicked aliens who usually make troubles. The space police have to fight off all wicked aliens in a limited time, but to avoid harm to the kindhearted aliens. The wicked aliens are not easy to be shot that they are floating fast and going to attack the space police. The space police will follow the certain circles to move in order to shoot the wicked aliens and avoid the attack from them. At the same time the police can get 15 sec bonus time by shooting the spaceships.

Features

• The game has only one level with 5 lives for every player.
• The game has a time limit within two and half minutes.
• During this game, the player should kill as many as wicked aliens to gain scores and without losing the whole lives (5 lives).
• If the player does not stand on the bright circle in time, one life is lost.
• The player can gain an extra 15 seconds of bonus by shooting the spaceship, to extend the playing time.

Resources

Materials

• 1 projector
• 1 web-camera
• 1 screen made of white fabric
• 9 LED lamps
• 1 dance mat with 9 buttons
• 1 hanging obstacle
• 1 laser gun
• 2 laptops
• 2 Arduino

Software

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 with XNA 3.1
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe ImageReady
• Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 or 2009

• 1 laser gun

Final Technical Plan

Physical Equipment Layout

After refining the concept in the game there will be one projector that is displaying the projection on the screen. Since the front screen is semi-transparent, the projector can be located behind the screen to avoid the player’s shadow on the screen.
There is a web-came facing the back of the screen, which is for detecting the laser spot of the weapon on the screen. This camera is at the back of the screen above the projector.
To strengthen the movement and aspect of exciting, the final result is using combination of the dance mat and LED lamps. One LED lamp will be lighting on an appropriate button, which lead the player to move on the specific position.
In order to increase the game`s interest and difficulty, there is one obstacle hanging on the ceiling. The player has to avoid being hit by them while shooting.
The player uses a gun to shoot the aliens. A laser pointer is attached to the gun, so whenever the player presses the trigger, the laser spot light will appear on the front screen, instead of bullet.
After refining the concept in the game there will be one projector that is displaying the projection on the screen. Since the front screen is semi-transparent, the projector can be located behind the screen to avoid the player’s shadow on the screen.
There is a web-came facing the back of the screen, which is for detecting the laser spot of the weapon on the screen. This camera is at the back of the screen above the projector.
To strengthen the movement and aspect of exciting, the final result is using combination of the dance mat and LED lamps. One LED lamp will be lighting on an appropriate button, which lead the player to move on the specific position.
In order to increase the game`s interest and difficulty, there is one obstacle hanging on the ceiling. The player has to avoid being hit by them while shooting.
The player uses a gun to shoot the aliens. A laser pointer is attached to the gun, so whenever the player presses the trigger, the laser spot light will appear on the front screen, instead of bullet.

How do the components work together when the game played?

When playing the game, the projector is connected to the computer, which lays out the projection on the screen, so that the player can see some aliens moving around on the screen. Then the player can shoot the aliens with a laser gun. In this situation, the laser spot light will appear on the screen, and the web-camera will capture the laser spot light, and then transfers the data into the computer. If the position of the spot matches the target, after software processing, the output data is given to the projector, then the target alien is displayed killed, with an explosion.
Meanwhile, we want to add more physical movements into the game, but not just standing and shooting, so we introduce the dance mat, LED lamps and hanging obstacle into the game. In the game, the player can see a circle is lighting downward to a specific position on the floor, which means the player should stand on that circle. The circle position will differ in each time, so the player has to rush to different spots as the circles show. In the situation, the system will detect if the player is in the right position. Another, the player have to pose different postures (standing on or squatting down) in order to avoid hitting the hanging obstacle.