Gun Hero - NYU Thesis Project

I made a game for my Masters Thesis at NYU's Integrated Digital Media program. Gun Hero, much like the intentionally simularly named Guitar Hero, uses plastic controller shaped liked the tool used in the game to make the player feel more connected to the game world. To emulate an old-school light gun arcade game, the plastic controller has an IR camera to track where the plastic gun is pointed on the screen (pretty standard stuff). To make the game more contemporary, an added Dance Dance Revolution mat allows the player to navigate the game space in three dimensions, and looking towards the edges of the screen allow the player to turn.

Because this was used for my thesis, I needed to gather some research data. Each of the five levels are identical mechanically, and each have the same layout and difficulty. I only changed the visual and audio assets to guage how the player's performance and feelings regarding the gameplay changed. I strapped a pulse oximeter onto the gun to record the player's heart rate between the different levels to gather physical feedback to compare against their survey responses. For more information about the nitty gritty of the thesis, here's the full site.