Probably if you’re reading this, you are a student or associated to students. Chances are quite big that you don’t live with your parents anymore, but don’t have that much money to spend on furniture as well. Then there’s an answer, and it involves a lot of meatballs, Swedish culture and coincidentally furniture. But it’s better known as IKEA.
In the fifth module of Creative Technology, New Media I made a game design based around this simple brand that has made its way in our culture. It was called Billy’s Expedit, and you could almost call it a simulation; you are assembling your Expedit (now Kallax) cabinet and you miss a screw. You need to go back to the store to look for that one screw, while passing a lot of annoying customers and a lot of pencils. This emotion was captured in a satirical way in my game design Billy’s Expedit.
Now in the sixth module of Creative Technology, Intelligent Interaction Design, we are faced with another programming course, where we use artificial intelligence in our programming. The memories of all the pleasure we had during New Media with my game were still fresh, and pretty soon it seemed that Billy’s Expedit would spawn a spinoff.
In this game you are in the same situation; you are back in the IKEA, looking for that one screw while having to avoid customers. This time however, the game would be a top-down viewpoint and turn based. Each turn you would decide which direction you want to go and how far you’d want to go. And each turn, the screw moves further away from you, while the customer is after you.
To accompany this experience, the LÅDA was designed. It integrated two potentiometers and one button. You could choose your angle using the regular potentiometer, and using the sliding potentiometer you could decide which distance. Finally there’s a red button central for firing yourself into the direction. Within the LÅDA is an Arduino Nano.
The map is based on an actual IKEA map, and was programmed majorly by Dylan Verburg who I’d like to thank for this wonderful experience of working together with on this assignment.
If you like this design or would just like to see more about me; feel free to visit my website!
Robin van Emmerloot
http://www.emmerloot.nl
