LED COLOR BATTLE GAME
technical report & design by DANSON/LAW & ANGIE LI
INTRODUCTION
We built a battle game that allows two players to play it. Both players will have to identify the only colour that is different from the others. The difference between those two colors is correlated with the level, which means the higher you reach, the harder it gets. Once the players figure out the answer, they need to press the button in front of the screen that shows colours. If one gets the correct answer quicker than the other player, the quicker one will get one point. After level 10 is reached, which means the game is completed, and those who gets the highest point will win the game.
The fun part is the players can be able to try the best to beat the other with enjoyable excitement. Although there is no time limit for each level, the players need to select the correct answer as fast as they can. They must obtain the point before the other gets it. In order to win, the players are required to have the ability of differentiating the color, not to mention the quick, sharp and responsive reaction to select the correct answer. There are some questions that are really hard because there will be extremely similar colors in the question. The players must pay careful attention to the colors in order to tell the difference.
SOLUTION / COLOR TESTING
Before the building, we did many research on color theory. Colors have big variabilities. In terms of gaming purpose, we need to decide which kind of color can be used in our game, also the selection for different difficulties. For example, the complementary color is the easiest to tell the difference, then the difficulty will not be high. Meanwhile, the analogous color with similar tints, shades and tones is hard to tell the difference, so the difficulty will be higher than the complementary color. We want each level can have 10 questions that will be randomly draw in the game. That means we need to test 100 colors combinations and then categorize them into specific level based on our visual judgement and the numerical differences between R,G and B value.
We found that the difference between each value of RGB is smaller, they will have the higher similarity. For example, those two brown colors that looks extremely similar. As seen, the difference of RGB value between two colors is very small, which means the color will not change too much because of small value differences. This data helped us to think of the harder questions for higher level.
In order to cover the messy wires and components, we decided to use cardboard and make a structural cover to hide those wires. The whole cover is black because we cannot let the light leaking from the cover. The screen of showing LED made by frosted plastic cover. We ran few test and realised if we directly look to the light bulbs, the brightness will affect the visual judgement on colours. Not to mention looking directly at the light bulbs will hurt the eyes. That is why we need to filter it to soften to a level that everyone can handle it without corrupting the visual display from each colour.
The interesting part is the button, because it made from chair legs protectors. It is some kind of thick and soft pad. We cut it into square and stick it on the small button. It is not only for a better experience on pressing the buttons, but it also enlarges the surface of the button for easier control.
SCHEMATIC
