Master's Thesis

My Master's Thesis was titled "Motion Control as an Input System for Non-Casual Games". The project I made to go with it was a non-casual game built in Unity 3d which was controlled entirely by the Microsoft Kinect.

The dissertation was concerned with the gap between the older traditional "hard core" gaming crowd, and the influx of newer casual gamers who were drawn in by motion control. These two groups are often at odds as hard core gamers usually do not like motion control and often do not believe motion can control non-casual games at all. Based on responses from volunteers who tested my game, I drew the conclusion that the control method I presented had potential but would need to be further refined and improved from the way I implemented it in order for the control scheme to be commercially viable.

As for the game itself, it was a role playing game with turn based combat. The whole game was short as it was meant as a demonstration of a concept, rather than be a full length game.

How the game appears at start up.

After calibrating, the avatar is mapped to the player's movements.

Like most Kinect games at present, the on screen avatar gets mapped to the player's motions. This was done as it is a standard of Kinect controls and increases the immersion the player feels in the game. With the avatar's motions matching those of the player, it was possible for the player to move around the world by walking forward, as seen in many other Kinect projects. However, given the size of the world in many role playing games, the player would have to walk very far to get anywhere. Also, if the player moves very far from where they calibrated the Kinect, they will move beyond the field of view. Due to these limitations, I decided some other method of actually moving was needed. To do that, I set it so that the player could simply take a single step in the desired direction to make the character move that way.

The combat system was turn based, to remove time limits from the player, and was focused on pointing. At first, there would be four allies and four enemies.

How combat appears at the start. Combat is started by colliding with an NPC on the field.

To select actions for a given character, the player simply points at whichever of the four panels in the middle of the screen they wish the character to perform.

Notice the highlighted (green) panel matches where the player is pointing.

Enemies were selected in a similar fashion. After selecting the action and target of all four allies, the actions would be performed, and damage tallied. The enemies would counterattack, and the next turn would begin. This system is exactly like those used in older role playing games like Final Fantasy I and II. Once three enemies were defeated or three allies were defeated, the last would flee the fight and the player would win or lose respectively.

DOWNLOAD: Thesis Dissertation

Thesis Game - The Unity package containing the Thesis. Note that in order to play it you will need Unity and have a Microsoft Kinect plugged into and installed on your computer.

Thesis - How to Play Directions - A PDF that was given to testers explaining how to play the game.