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    Austin in the CAVE


    2010 - 05.07

    Here’s Austin from Lockheed playing Trapped downstairs in the CAVE

    Trapped playtest from Team Physion on Vimeo.

    Physion’s 3 minute video


    2010 - 05.07

    Physion from Team Physion on Vimeo.

    Trapped is ready!


    2010 - 04.20

    Physion is glad to announce that our final deliverable for this semester’s project is complete and in play testing phase at the moment. We had a very successful soft opening on Monday and were even able to demonstrate the game real-time with our guests as players, including Don Marinelli and Curt Bererton. Watch this space for a gameplay demo or visit us at Entertainment Technology Center to play the game!

    Trapped is a game that utilizes sounds and visuals to make the player go through different stages of biofeedback arousal: he can be scared, nervous, relaxed, or bored. The player wears a headset to measure brainwave activity and three sensors on his/hers fingers that measure heart beat variance and GSR. We also alter the gameplay to keep the player more engaged. If you find the game too difficult, the number of enemies decreases and vice verse. If you’re nervous, the screen blurs and you can hear your heart racing. And the calmer you are, the more precise are your shots, indicated by a growing/shrinking crosshair.

    We also developed a tool to capture and analyze player’s biofeedback and compare it to a different person’s sample or data from a previous play of the game. With this, we hope to make it possible to control the biofeedback curve, flatten or sharpen it. One of potential, real-world uses for our game is to aid in overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder by having a patient play the game multiple times to flatten out the biofeedback curve.

    Church Interior Render


    2010 - 03.24

    Half Presentation


    2010 - 03.21

    Concept sketch for the church


    2010 - 02.19

    Yesterday we had a meeting to discuss what art direction we’re going with the game. After filling up the white board with ideas ranging from a western chase to an airplane invasion, we narrowed it down to three time periods: modernday, gold rush era, and 19th century; and a few locales: school, town block, castle, laboratory, etc.

    Our game will take place in a 19th century graveyard, you are a professional zombie hunter knight coming to the rescue of a little remote village to save the world from a zombie invasion.

    Here’s a church that’s in the graveyard:

    1/4 Presentations


    2010 - 02.12

    Today is our modified quarter presentations day. Due to the recent snow storm, we have a slightly different schedule and instead of presenting once and in front of everyone, we’re giving 6 mini-presentations to two faculty members at a time.

    We’re half way finished with presentations and the most common advice we’re getting from faculty is: How does the biofeedback make our game more fun and challenging?

    Our goal for next week is to make a simple proof of concept game and start playtesting and collect data based on different situations.

    Testing NeuroSky headset


    2010 - 01.31

    Here’s our programmer, Yantong, playtesting a game using a NeuroSky headset.