TurnItUp

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Inspiration

We wanted to create something wacky and fun, sort of like a calculator that would insult the user instead of calculating the answer. We searched for something that had a large gap between expectation and reality for the user to make it come off as more ridiculous. Eventually we went with the idea of adding sound or visual elements to make it more relatable and exciting for the user.

What it does

What seems to be a simple speed-typing test game actually tests the user’s pitch recognition at the same time! Three keys on the user’s keyboard are binded to a particular pitch range, and in order to use them, the user has to sing into the microphone. There are five rounds in total for the user to speed-type and sing their way through, and a special leaderboard to show off your record to your friends.

How we built it

We built it using HTML and Javascript, for simplicity. The core of this project was based on the HTML5 AudioContext API, where pure javascript code could receive audio from the browser.

Challenges we ran into

As most members of our team had no experience in HTML before this project, we had to learn from scratch the relevant syntax. At first, the game could only work on the Firefox browser due to security issues with requesting access to the user’s microphone. It is now able to run on Firefox and Chrome browser, so do make sure to head on there for the best experience. Another challenge stemmed from the fact that there was only a particular range that we could bind the keys to, which either matches the normal voice range for male or for female, so we could only test it out for either gender. Also, we wanted our quotes to be extra special so they were all hard coded from scratch, which took up a long time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our best record was 32 seconds for 5 rounds while testing this game.

What we learned

We learned that there were several things to consider while creating an annoying game. First, we had to make sure that the difficulty of the game was just about right so that the players would feel frustrated but still be motivated enough to continue playing the game to feel even more annoyed. Second, we realized that it had to have some meaning or usefulness so that the players would be encouraged to play, even though the whole thing might be annoying. All in all, we once again learned that a lot of effort and time are put into making any type of program.

What's next for TurnItUp

We need to have three separate difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard); the pitch range corresponding to delete would increase as the difficulty level increases to annoy our players even more! We also found out that we may need different pitch range presets for female and male players as the current range corresponding to delete is too low for female vocal cords. Additionally, we are thinking of creating a separate practice mode where players can type anything they want using our funky keyboard setup! A tutorial for new players, accompanied by some polish in UI/UX will be well appreciated as well.