-
Keyboard demo
-
Preparing the shoes
Inspiration
The idea of taking dance dance revolution style games on the go wherever you are without needing a dancing pad seemed both ridiculous and amazing to us. Too amazing / ridiculous in fact that we just had to realise it's potential!
What it does
Our display device will host a fast-paced, stylised dancing game playing the hit song Rasputin, generating notes and actions for the player to perform and receiving inputs from an Arduino mounted on the dancer. This Arduino is fed by pressure sensors to detect when and how a user steps and this information is sent to the main device to make actions.
The aim of the game is to get as high of a score as possible, and yes we will be recording who got the highest score of everyone who tries it!
How we built it
For the game itself we used unity, with the program written in C# and all assets either drawn in 2D or 3D modelled in Blender.
Instead of just getting the user's keyboard input though we mount an Arduino to our user's belt and with some wearable tech that goes on the bottom of your feet we have sensors that feed into the Arduino. When these sensors are pressed the time and location information of each one is sent to the game and re-interpreted as an input so the users can play the game by moving and stomping their feet!
Challenges we ran into
We initially started programming our game in Python, however PyGame's rendering capabilities simply weren't there for the visual ambition we wanted to pull off so we had to make a late switch to Unity and scramble to get it assembled in time (which I think we did pretty well!).
We could not get a hold of the correct accelerometers we initially wanted we had to improvise solutions to keep our control scheme functional, including entirely changing how the game would work multiple times to accommodate our new and wacky controls.
To input our song accurately we had to study and carefully input commands based on the sheet music and time signature of the song, which was very precise and time consuming.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We successfully adapted and pivoted our projects trajectory multiple times in order to keep going when environmental factors were working against us.
We created a game that is both challenging and fun to play either with your body by dancing or with your keyboard if you can't/do not want to.
What we learned
How to work efficiently and in a coordinated manner in a team environment.
The value of planning and prototyping ideas beforehand.
Improved our programming, electronics and 3D modelling skills.
What's next for Dance Dance Communist Revolution
More songs, more dancing, more sensors to enforce better dancing (or conversely maybe enforce worse dancing if it looks funnier)
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.