Good Samaritan

Interactive Installation, Collaborative, Experimental

Project Role

Lead Programmer, Engineer, Game Designer

Collaborators

Kaley Blackwell
Tianhe Zhang

Responsibilities

Game Design: Kaley, Tianhe, and I collaborated to design the theme and the core game loop of Good Samaritan.

Programming: I handled the bulk of the programming in both the Arduino and in Unity, including tying together each organ’s function, the visual and auditory feedback, and setting everything to the timer at random intervals within set ranges.

Engineering: Tianhe and I did most of the engineering, wiring, and setup for the installation. During prototyping, we engineered the different processes for the organs and their functions individually, and with Kaley’s fabrication, we installed Good Samaritan together.

Process

This project was developed over a month inside the MICA Game Lab for the Installation Games course. Our original concept was that the player would work as “cells” keeping the body moving, and turned into the idea of working together to keep giant organs stable using a large range of motion.

The core game loop works between both Unity and Arduino, where the Arduino works as an external controller that runs each organ, and the game loop is tied to Unity.

We prototyped each piece in the Arduino, and connected it to Unity for extra visual and auditory feedback after developing conceptual prototypes. Once all our prototypes were developed, Kaley fabricated soft stuffed shells for our organs that made them comfortable and easy to handle.

After about a month of prototyping, testing, and fabricating, it took us around 12 hours to set up the final installation.