Project Details and Thoughts
Bass Slapper: Right to Bear Arms (or Bear Arms for short) was my third and last student game project in my Kinect game development course during the Spring 2012 semester. It was developed using Unity3D for the Microsoft Kinect.
In Bear Arms, the player uses his hands to control bear paws on the screen. The mother bear is standing in the middle of a river facing downstream as fish swim towards her. Her two cubs stand on the riverbanks above her on either side of the screen. The goal of the game is simple: smack the fish with your paws to feed the cubs on the riverbanks. Gain points for every fish successfully smacked, and when you smack five fish in a row, you get the chance to slap and eat a green fish which will grant you a superpower that can be activated via a certain movement. However, be careful of the beehives and sharks that may also swim up the river: if you smack them you will get attacked by bees or sharks and will be unable to hit any fish until you kill the enemy by swiping at them.
The games features superpowers that are activated by a specific movement from the player. For instance, the first superpower you can get is a stomp which, when activated by the player stomping his right foot in front of the Kinect, will unleash a geyser in the river, and fish will rain from the sky. There is also a superpower where the player raises his arms and "parts the river", causing the water to rise to the sides and reveal flopping fish on the riverbed, and the cubs will quickly jump down to eat the fish. The final superpower, putting the player's hands over his eyes, lets the player shoot lasers into the distance, setting the forest on fire and an image of Smokey the Bear will move across the screen.
I was assigned into a 5-person team as a programmer, with one other programmer and three artists. We started this project roughly around April and finished it by the beginning of May.
Programmer
My main role as a programmer for this project was to implement all the main gameplay mechanics and integrate them with the assets provided by the art team. My partner programmer focused on the Kinect movement and recognition for the superpowers, as well as the AI for the fish (i.e. getting them to jump and arc properly for the player to hit).
I programmed different class managers to take care of important events, such as spawning the fish and obstacles, as well as the main scripts which took care of all the player, fish and enemy behavior. This included collision detection and behavior, and keeping track of and displaying the score.
As the mechanics slowly began to flesh out through the weeks, I also coordinated with the artists to figure out what assets we would need, and integrate them with the code. They also took care of providing sound assets, and I integrated them as well.
Once my partner finished his parts of the game, we would meet up and work on integrating our two gameplay aspects together: his superpower and Kinect functionality with my main mechanics and game flow.
Final Thoughts
Bear Arms was most definitely one of my more enjoyable projects. After learning and practicing using Unity to make games for the previous two projects, I went into this last one for the course confident and eager. Not only was my team easy to work with, but we all came up with some humorous ideas which ended up getting implemented quite well into the game. The superpowers especially were my favorite part, and I still can't stop myself from laughing every time I play-test them. Bear Arms was also one of my smoother projects, where the team set proper deadlines for ourselves and pulled a lot farther ahead than some of the projects of our peers. This game definitely became mainly a humor project, but it was also a great way to see what I could do in Unity and keep my programming up to par. It did help me get back in shape using C#, even if they were mainly simple scripts. In the end, I'm really happy with how this game turned out and I am proud to have been a big part of its creation. I am sure I will come back to it someday in the future to continue polishing it and make a more presentable demo for all to see.
In Bear Arms, the player uses his hands to control bear paws on the screen. The mother bear is standing in the middle of a river facing downstream as fish swim towards her. Her two cubs stand on the riverbanks above her on either side of the screen. The goal of the game is simple: smack the fish with your paws to feed the cubs on the riverbanks. Gain points for every fish successfully smacked, and when you smack five fish in a row, you get the chance to slap and eat a green fish which will grant you a superpower that can be activated via a certain movement. However, be careful of the beehives and sharks that may also swim up the river: if you smack them you will get attacked by bees or sharks and will be unable to hit any fish until you kill the enemy by swiping at them.
The games features superpowers that are activated by a specific movement from the player. For instance, the first superpower you can get is a stomp which, when activated by the player stomping his right foot in front of the Kinect, will unleash a geyser in the river, and fish will rain from the sky. There is also a superpower where the player raises his arms and "parts the river", causing the water to rise to the sides and reveal flopping fish on the riverbed, and the cubs will quickly jump down to eat the fish. The final superpower, putting the player's hands over his eyes, lets the player shoot lasers into the distance, setting the forest on fire and an image of Smokey the Bear will move across the screen.
I was assigned into a 5-person team as a programmer, with one other programmer and three artists. We started this project roughly around April and finished it by the beginning of May.
Programmer
My main role as a programmer for this project was to implement all the main gameplay mechanics and integrate them with the assets provided by the art team. My partner programmer focused on the Kinect movement and recognition for the superpowers, as well as the AI for the fish (i.e. getting them to jump and arc properly for the player to hit).
I programmed different class managers to take care of important events, such as spawning the fish and obstacles, as well as the main scripts which took care of all the player, fish and enemy behavior. This included collision detection and behavior, and keeping track of and displaying the score.
As the mechanics slowly began to flesh out through the weeks, I also coordinated with the artists to figure out what assets we would need, and integrate them with the code. They also took care of providing sound assets, and I integrated them as well.
Once my partner finished his parts of the game, we would meet up and work on integrating our two gameplay aspects together: his superpower and Kinect functionality with my main mechanics and game flow.
Final Thoughts
Bear Arms was most definitely one of my more enjoyable projects. After learning and practicing using Unity to make games for the previous two projects, I went into this last one for the course confident and eager. Not only was my team easy to work with, but we all came up with some humorous ideas which ended up getting implemented quite well into the game. The superpowers especially were my favorite part, and I still can't stop myself from laughing every time I play-test them. Bear Arms was also one of my smoother projects, where the team set proper deadlines for ourselves and pulled a lot farther ahead than some of the projects of our peers. This game definitely became mainly a humor project, but it was also a great way to see what I could do in Unity and keep my programming up to par. It did help me get back in shape using C#, even if they were mainly simple scripts. In the end, I'm really happy with how this game turned out and I am proud to have been a big part of its creation. I am sure I will come back to it someday in the future to continue polishing it and make a more presentable demo for all to see.
Bass Slapper: Right to Bear Arms Play Demo Video