Change of plans

Our idea of connect four was that there would be two players in different rooms with empty connect four boards. This would be done using Arduino boards with sensors to detect when the users drop their 1 counter into a column (which would then slide out the bottom for reuse), then the current gamestate would either be displayed using LEDs or on a computer screen. Yet again though this was "just a game" so we decided that before we give our idea presentation we should have a discussion with Simon about some other ideas.

John and Simon had a little chat with Simon and our game idea changed to tig/tag/hit to allow us to create a virus-type game using Twitter.

Research & Preperation

We began the research and preparation of our product design during the start of our 3rd session. We have just been grouped with our second years, through a system where they pick a board game from the list of first years that they like the sound of. After spending a lot of time discussing our idea of foosball we came to the conclusion that this did not suit our timeframe or the equipment we would be able to use. All our ideas included things like playing foosball online or using the webcam, which were both hard and were "just a game" which is what Simon said he didn't want. This left as back at square one; trying to think of a board game suitable for our project that would be more of an interactive experience and serve more of a purpose than just being a game.
Our next set of choices included monopoly, connect four and snakes & ladders. The complexity of monopoly ruled it out so we began thinking of ideas for the other two, although both were resulting in the same thing: they were just games. We though of playing snakes and ladders on a bigger scale with things like remote control cars or people representing things and we also thought of a robotics connect 4 allowing users to play other users online using sensors but ultimately, all of these were still just games.

After more discussion we leaned more towards connect four, as monopoly is a complex game and our potential idea for it would have been even more complex. Our idea for connect four seems doable, thought could be expensive, however it seems likely that this idea will be both technical using arduino boards but will also show creativity and understanding of the brief. As Simon has told us though, the idea is still "just a game".