Productive Day

Although we have about 10 experts signed up for this session, only 3 showed up today, but we were able to get quite a bit out of this group, so I wasn't disappointed in the small turn out.

This group met with Barbara and were tasked to come up with a simple, interesting game that uses the dance pads and keeps players moving. The group came up with a spoof on pacman, called pacmouse. The premise of the game was the same as pacman, but players have to use the dance pads to make their character do what they want.

The group presented their idea to the developers, who in turn, may begin programming such a game (with possible revisions).

I also had the group do some guided game play on the dance pads before the game development. I had them play DDR and into the groove and later had them compare and constrast the two. They all preffered DDR over Into the Groove and said it was much more challenging, intersting and easy to follow. Into the Groove, on the other hand, was harder to follow and also much more boring. It was hard to get them to play that one for more than 5 minutes. They had no trouble playing DDR - which kept them occupied (taking turns in pairs) for up to 20 minutes at one time.

The group also had the pleasure of eating lunch with the game developers, which was a nice opportunity for them everyone to get to know each other. I think this also helped later in the day durning the presentation - when the experts seemed more at ease presenting their ideas to the developers. I hope to do more of these lunches in the future.