PP3 – Puzzle Game

For Pressure Project 3, I decided to create a game reminiscent of games like The Talos Principle and The Stanley Parable. These games are unique in that they explore themes of determinism and freewill, and the ending you receive is based on how you perform in light of the choices you make in the game. Certain choices made following the instruction of the narrator/narration will lead you to a somewhat lesser ending than one of disobedience and self-determination. The links below highlight the endings of the games where these themes are evident.

Talos Principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5FloMq9Lck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mNa2csiD8E
Stanley Parable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3UxRa_-9UU

Given the time constraint, I decided to make a game with the puzzle goal of unlocking when the user successfully correlates actions, but only executes their own commands.

User Inputs would include a gamepad controller and a Kinect interface, and users would input a corresponding button on the controller or move in a corresponding way in space.
🡸 🡺 🡹 🡻 A (Jump) B (Crouch)

Participants would move in a grid space made up in Isadora with data from the Kinect to complete the physical inputs. In the first phase, only the game pad would be used. In the second, only physical movement. In the final phase, both would be used. Thematically, there would be psychology/philosophy quotes about choice between phases, some which would suggest a means of escape/winning. In the final phase, you would unlock the real ending if you made valid unprompted choices.

The game wasn’t completed because I lost the save at one point when I was trying to get the Kinect stream working. SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN. At time of performance, game included the first phase only. It also broke.

Here’s a user actor example on how to make a non-repeating random number string generator. Change length or modulo number for different results. This was used to generate the pattern of inputs that the user had to input.