Documentation of video prototype - The Hurt Locker

The hurt locker is a mixed reality and computer game. The idea of this game actually came from two games we all know, the board game battleship and the computer game minesweeper. Battleship is a very fun game but seems there are too many pins, and it’s pretty much random guessing when we play the game, making it less exciting. However, minesweeper provides us a lot of spaces to use our logic inference, but it can be a little too complicated for young kids, I actually never bothered thinking about what does those numbers mean when I was young.

So how can we find a very simple game which involves a little bit of thinking for young kids. With that question in mind, I decided to create a new game, which uses a new form of interaction method on a very simple 3×3 interface. I combined the featured element of battleship and minesweeper to create this new game called The Hurt Locker. Obviously, the game is to disarm the bomb and stop it from hurting people, and it’s a game for two players. To make it more fascinating, I decided to implement a controller which is a panel with a 3×3 wire set that allow the player to actually cut the wires, and LED bulbs to tell them what kind of wire they just cut.

Each panel of the players is connected to their own computer. Before the game starts, they need to designate a bomb wire for their opponent which would detonate the bomb when cut, and two disarm wires which would disarm the bomb when both of them are cut. This done through a software installed on their own computer. The rest of the wires are called blank wire, cutting a blank wire will have no effect to the bomb, but the yellow LED bulb on the panel will blink, letting you know that you cut a blank wire. Likewise, the green LED will blink when you cut a disarm wire.

Before you cut each wire, you get a chance to ask your opponent a true or false question, like “is the bomb wire in row 1, or is B2 a disarm wire. This will help you to locate the bomb or disarm wire, and try to disarm the bomb faster then your opponent does, which will lead you to victory of the game.

                                        Testing the game concept on a pen and paper prototype