Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Lcuk and I came up with an idea for a simple acclerometer game on the bus to Barcelona Airport. Unfortunately we got to terminal 2 before we got to the coding..

The concept is simple. You have a field of sheep, with a few pens. You rock and tip the device to get the sheep into the pens. Then as you go through the levels, the game develops complications. You are the 'sheepdog' rounding up the sheep. Once a sheep has been penned, it becomes inert (and therefore cannot be bounced or scared out of its pen)

Level 1: Pup

Six sheep, two pens. You must get three sheep in each pen. Responsiveness relatively slow. If user takes too long, the sheep get a bit bored and occasionally stop to eat flowers: they can only be dislodged with a 'bounce/flick' of the device. This will also move any other unpenned sheep.

Level 2: Training dog

Twelve sheep, three pens. Four sheep in each pen (you can't put more than 4 in any one pen). Medium responsiveness. If you are slow the sheep will stop and eat flowers, or lift their tails and poop. Bounce/flick to dislodge them. This will also move any unpenned sheep. Introduction of 'wolf' concept: wolf icon appears from one side of the screen and all unpenned sheep scatter in the opposite direction. Repeat if the game taks too long.

Level 3: Man's best friend

Twenty sheep, four pens. Five sheep in each pen (and only five). Responsiveness maximum. Sheep occasionally stop to eat flowers and poop and need to be bounced. Wolves may enter from all sides and scatter the sheep. Wolf may move across the field, scattering unpenned sheep in all directions away from it.

When all sheep have been penned, game over screen shows a bone and "Well done, good dog!"

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Do I get it right that your movements influence sheep in a specific way (tilt right, the sheep will go that way)?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Yes, basically the sheep will move down the 'slope' of the screen. The idea came because Lcuk's device has a simple 'three boxes that tip' system on it, and I suggested having to put them into pens... and it grew from there. It's a tipping/co-ordination game.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Not "That'll do, pig. That'll do."?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

This sounds like a fun project (ok, it was the part about pooping that got me in :) ).
I can take care of accelerometers and engine parts.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I did think that... but it might be copyright. ;)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Brilliant!

I said I'd never used anything like an acceleromoter, so Lcuk pointed out to me that I used to play those games with little silver bearings which you have to navigate into holes or up spiral slopes - it's exactly the same principle. Somehow we got from there to pooping sheep. :D

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

You ever played/seen this ?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Nope.

I don't 'do' gaming. I play solitaire, mahjong, and I just got into tetris. I once played a game of Myst. I am that person who complains about young people today wasting time on computer games... in my day we did something productive with our time! ;)

It doesn't surprise me that sheep games exist. It's a pretty obvious format for gathering things together.

What I have in mind needs prettier sheep than those. :p

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

For some reason, I'm thinking of llamatron.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

@RevdKathy, I think that those sheep were cute, I had a great time with them (ekhm...).
Yeah, then I'm one of those young persons, wasting my time on games and other blasphemy :)

Back to subject: if this project is to kick out, we need a) people with various expertise and b) some structure and place for it.
Anyone interested in project leader-sheep? (@RevdKathy ?)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

My youngest son has that PC sheep game and loved it-- although he was often frustrated that the AI seemed a little too smart. :D

But I think this is great! In fact there are sooo many possibilities with accerometers...

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

The sheep in my head are cuter. Or is that Qter? Sadly, I completely lack any graphic skills t get them from my head to paper or screen. :(

Wouldn't be my first shot at being a pastor... err shepherd! But I'm waaay out of my depth here. I can dream dreams... but implementation is beyond me. What do you need?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

"Rampage" :)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

We need people, people, people... Especially someone(s) in department of graphics. We also need to decide, if we are aiming into casual and quick Qt/Gtk thing or are going into OpenGL with some engine.

And a good leader is a must, having many other projects, I will be happy to be just a working sheep :)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I am really not the person to make decisions about Qt v OpenGL - that needs to be the decision of the people who are going to code. I'll see if I can find us a designer, though.

What does a leader need to do? I don't mind 'driving' the project, but I suspect you'd be better off with someone who has the tech knowledge. Lcuk was in on this on the bus... think he'd do it?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

OpenGL will bring you more glitz but is a lot, a LOT more complex business than, for example, Qt's scene based GraphicsView which, however, in combination with the Animation Framework, can do most of the heavy lifting on it's own.

Also, to clear a small misunderstanding in the making - you certainly CAN make OpenGL stuff in Qt. The question is just how much of the builtins of Qt do you wish to use in that case.

PS Alternatively, you could use the accelerometer to control a 'dog', and the sheep would be running from it (as opposed to simulating mountain goats on a slope :) ). Then you could choose the race of the dog, smaller ones being more agile, bigger ones having more effect on the sheep but moving/turning slower... and introduce multiplayer functionality with several dogs on the same terrain... but now I'm starting to get carried away :)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Hearing this and watching the previous video I got to thinking it might be neat to have (optional) mic intergration. That is, even though tilting the device would move the dog, the sheep wouldn't actually be persuaded to move until a user "barked": into the mic. Then again, I'm not sure how easy that would be. I just remember doing something similar on Nintendo DS.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I can just imagine someone on the bus turning a phone this way and that, while barking.. the bus driver makes a call, pulls over, and some brawny guys in white coats take over! :D

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

@Kathy: This one had you all over it, definately a good idea.

Got beaten to posting the idea of controlling the dog though :(

Rather than barking how about an authentic whistle command set. The DS used to have a training mode for the dogs so maybe have this integrated in to up response and maybe fitness level of the dogs? You could use this then to form the basis of an ah-hoc network match against other players or just a longer term interest. For the shorter games a quick default set of values could be used.

Have I gotten carried away with ths too?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

No, it's all fair game until we start introducing wolves (AI, but potentially PvP multiplayer, too :).

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I'd imagine they'd have a few wardens from the crazy bin come along as well.

"He was barking at his phone, doc!"

I do like the whistle idea though. Would be more interesting than barking, assuming there was a varied enough command set.

I just hope Nintendo doesn't try to file another file suit siting Nintendogs copyright infringement ;-)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Hmm, this thread is going into an interesting direction :)
Whistling - doable but difficult, we will need someone from the signals/acoustics department to do all this Fourier stuff.
With an idea of a dog being controlled, we are moving into the direction of this Sheep game I've posted earlier. Any insight about how this will work out with accelerometers? I.e. won't accelerometer-based control be just a PitA?

Anyone tried this animation framework from Qt? The old approach sucked big time (ok, there wasn't a real animation available).

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Did a bit of searching and thought this wikipedia article could be useful to who ever was brave enough to tackle sound recognition at some point:

Goertzel Algorithm

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Wow! This idea has grown and got wings. I don't really mind where it goes. I just saw plain boxes being moved around the screen and wanted them to be sheep being penned.

I do think you'd get picked up on a section 136 if you were barking into your phone on a bus, though. ;)

Would make for some interesting venues for maemo meets. :p

Do we have a shepherd willing to design us some sheep?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Was just curious, I've seen the Qt toolkit tossed around a couple of times. Assuming Qt was chosen, would it be pure c++, or python, java, etc bindings?

As far as the animation framework is concerned, i haven't used it yet, but read the documentation thoroughly and thought it seemed pretty straight forward and much easier to implement than QGraphicsView

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I think it's time to put the clever people in this thread together with the equally clever people in this thread.

We have some great designs there. Can we (meaning 'can you!') put the meadow, sheep and flowers on to the accelerometer engines?

*Is hoping up and down with excitement watching this unfold*

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

@RevdKathy

Yes, I think it's time to put some life into those cool designs.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgIftzagadI

Sheep get bored (white dots), you need to excite them (I know how it sounds, but it just stuck in my mind ) to be able to move them.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

That's the idea. The original item I started with was lcuk's app which had three little squares on a grey background that rolled around the screen as you moved and tipped the device. It just seemed you could make something with having to tip them into certain places (not unlike how bounce operates) and penning sheep popped into my head.

Now we have a wonderful set of sheep. :D We need to start herding them.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

i think someone should start a garage project or wiki page to keep all the ideas in order like, adding other animals lcuks idea about fix could have underwater level with fish and hoops instead of sheep and fence. I know we need to finish basic game first just saying a place to shre ideas is needed

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I don't know how to create a garage project (out of my depth there) but I could open us a wiki page if that would do?

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I tend to think of stuff in the wiki as things that appeal universally. (a wiki page on game programming on maemo, how the accelerometer works, etc). IMHO a garage page would be better for this since it is a fairly specific topic that won't necessarily appeal to all audiences.

OTOH, I'm but a sheep, and you the shepherd, Kathy :-) Stated a less Confucius-like way "You lead, I'll follow"

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

if you want I'll setup the garage project then set you as admin

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

The garage is down till Monday anyways :)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I gathered the garage was down. It was a way of avoiding thinking about it... I think I have the right log-ins as I can access both brainstorm and bugzilla. But it's way outside my experience. I'm happy to watch and make helpful suggestions if someone else would like to set it up. :)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I just registered sheep-dog.garage.maemo.org it will take some time for them to approve it then if everyone will register we can share ideas,code, and graphics there as well. I will also set RevdKathy as project manager.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Gosh! That sounds/feels like a lot of responsibility! Especially for someone with zero actual skills. :p

It's amazing, though, watching this all come together. :)

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Project Managers often have no programming or design skills just the ideas and the motivation to keep the programmers programming, and the designers designing.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

I had some time to put together a basic engine for the game.

Some screenshots:

http://img685.yfrog.com/img685/9792/...9122019113.png

http://img402.yfrog.com/img402/5505/...9122019120.png

http://img695.yfrog.com/img695/7936/...9122019121.png

and a movie (yes, quality sucks):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVFR1fnFOo

Main features/idea:
-sheep are influenced by various objects (attracted or deterred)
-influence from objects sum up and sheep move in this direction
-accelerometers control is implemented as single attracting object moved on the map
-pens are objects with three distracting objects, leaving only one enter
-objects can be added by tapping the screen, such points remains as attraction for some time and then changes to deterring object (then disappears)
-simple collision detection system is implemented, based on the attraction mechanism

All the parameters can be easily adjusted and expanded (strength of attraction, sheep character etc.).
This allows easy adding of new control options and should be a natural way to interact with sheep. Touch screen, accelerometers, dog, lasers, ruber ducks...
I haven't really done anything with graphics, it works as you can see :)

What do you think about it? Especially @RevdKathy, how it goes with your vision?
If there is anyone interesting in moving this into functional game (some work with engine and then actual game logics) I could use some help :) If not, I will probably work on this in my free time.

Re: Accelerometer game proposal: sheepdog
 

Brilliant!

(The lambs are coming home ... and other snatches of carols...)

I presume in the finished version the blue and red dots become invisible - other than that, it works exactly I I envisaged.. though you are going to have trouble getting all those sheep in those two pens!

Do the sheep become 'inert' once penned - or is there a risk of attracting then out of the pen while you pen another? In the simple version, it would be easiest if they stay put once penned. Can that be done? Put them in a 'dead spot' once penned?

It's lovely! I'm hopping about with excitiement!