Last year I co-created a game for a freshly built centre opening in Foxton, NZ. Our game was to fulfil the interactive entertainment section for the centre where kids can come and enjoy hours of fun by themselves or with friends. The game Shadow Showdow: Foxton is a complete overhaul on the original, featuring new game modes, sounds, content and hardware.
The core objective for the game remains; fill in the shape as best possible by only using your body. Players are awarded points for filling in the silhouette and subtracted points for covering areas outside the silhouette. A total percentage out of 100 is given to the player. How players fill in the silhouette is totally up to them, leaving space for creative solutions.
We included different modes for the game as well. Each mode plays in a different way, with some lasting as long as the players do. Below are some of the descriptions:
Quick Play
Short and sweet. Pick a shape, fill it in, get a score. Try and beat the highscore!
Competitive
Compete against another player or team – best out of 3 rounds wins! A new random shape appears each round and teams take turns scoring for the highest percentage.
Survival
Fill in shape after shape in this non-stop game mode. Complete each shape to the required percentage before the timer runs out!
Simon Says
Create your own shadow shape and have a buddy fill it in! Each team takes a turn to create a weird and wonderful shape on screen for the opposing team to fill in as best they can.
The shadow images were made by hand by my collaborator Jenna Gavin and are entirely based on the flora and fauna of the Foxton area. Each image gives the player a challenge to manoeuvre their body and fit inside often resulting in an amusing position. To go along with the images we sourced relatable sounds for when the images appear.
We used the Kinect V2 for this project, which allowed us better depth resolution. We were also able to increase the framerate to a consistent 30 fps. Much higher than our previous iterations.
For players to select modes we decided to include a tablet to the side. The layout of the tablet is similar to the main screen with both apps responding instantly to the user’s touch. The tablet is always connected to the main app.
Shadow Showdown: Foxton is running from November 2017 until mid 2018.
