Project: HELLO KITTY DAVENPORT Vintage Gaming Project

Students: Mauro Arrighi, Irmgard Reiter, Gregor Göttfert

The Old Interface Culture’s Black Sofa becomes a new gaming interface. A second hand gaming console is connected to capacitive sensors that enable the visitors to play the game “Hello Kitty World” in a new mode. Three players sit down on the sofa. They have to practice coordination by verbal and nonverbal communication to move quickly in order to control the character’s actions in the game. More visitors gather round the sofa to watch their performance and the game itself, which is displayed on a screen in front of them. The sofa interface is decorated in Hello Kitty style.

Project: Headbang Hero

Students: Tiago Martins, Ricardo Nascimento, Andreas Zingerle
http://www.headbanghero.com

*Headbang Hero* is a music/dance video game for testing and improving your headbanging prowess.
A special wig is used as a game controller, feeding motion data to the game software. The game analyses in real time how well your headbanging follows the rhythm of the music. You are awarded points for your personal headbanging choreography… but you should be aware that your health is at risk! To stress this point *Headbang Hero* also analyses how hazardous your performance is. As opposed to what happens in games where the player is in control of an avatar, in *Headbang Hero* what matters is the player’s own health. The game keeps track of two distinct aspects of the player’s performance. The first is the player’s (potentially heroic) sense of style and rhythm as he headbangs along to the music. The second is the amount of health damage the player is causing himself in the quest to become a hero. When the game ends the player receives a printed health report based on his performance analysis. Included in this report are tips on how to improve the performance and advice on how to avoid injuries.