Self evaluation
I’m really happy with how both the game and the cabinet turned out for Shape Arcade, and I’m especially proud of the way that the game works while still adhering to the project constraint of having a single mode of interaction. It’s quite a lot of fun to play (I’ve certainly caught myself several times telling myself “just one more try!”) and is a solid base for a potentially further expanded game. It was a difficult challenge, though the design of the game and cabinet definitely benefitted from having that constraint. I feel as though I have not only reached my goals for the project, but far exceeded them.
With that said, not everything worked perfectly, and given the opportunity to tackle the project a second time, I would love to have solved the latency issue over bluetooth. It might be fun to have a little mini-arcade controller version of this that communicates with a much larger screen. I also really liked the idea of having the ability to stretch the shape dynamically, but when I moved to using dials specifically I had to cut it (we only have two hands, and having to switch to a third dial felt really unnatural).
I also quite like the explosion effect, but I wish that I had implemented something a little bit flashier (with something like particle effects) to make the visuals more dynamic. Additionally, the text is formatted in such a way that it is specific for the display resolution, and it doesn’t scale properly. I’d like to find a way to make that fit on the screen better.
Knowing what I know now, I would also try to make the arcade cabinet in such a way that it could be assembled and dissasembled easily for transport (especially given it’s current size) and would perhaps make the cabinet slightly smaller for use with the more expensive screen. It’s a bigger upfront cost, but the parts will be easier to replace should anything go wrong (I have no way to easily get a replacement for the used display that I am currently using).
I’ve really enjoyed working on Shape Arcade over the past several weeks, and would love to continue working on it in the future. Hope you enjoy it!
Matthew Deline 