I think it's a really fun carnival-game like concept. People would know what they're supposed to do and would not need an explanation. I like that there are two stages and the first one affects how many balls you get in the second one.
The targets have a good variety of movement and responses to getting hit which will allow users to engage at a variety of levels. The gravity actuated return system should allow for smooth operation, and the turnstile which is activated when teammate correctly press the buttons will allow for the teammates to play a key role in the game. I wonder if there is any way to incentivize giving multiple team members a change to try the targets, as it really appears to be the exciting part of the game. Alternatively, could there be more than one sling shot so more players have an opportunity to do something more than press buttons?
You certainly covered a lot in this sketch model! One thing to consider if you move forward with this is the electronics in the kraken, and it's communication with the scoreboard. You mentioned IR sensors, which I think are a good idea, but if you haven't already, definitely look up how similar arcade games achieve this. I'm also a little concerned/confused about how you envision the net to be. There's just enough room for them to reach down and load the slingshot, but once they pull it back, won't they still be able to take the ball out? I guess I'm just a little confused about the arrangement of the room as a whole, but I'm sure you've thought these things through a bit more. Safety is definitely a priority here though with a slingshot, and looking at your partner's design, limiting the angle of movement seems like an elegant solution.
The game itself is fun but I think it brings up a few practical questions: how to keep the balls from leaving the room, how to make the net so that it's easy to see and reach through, how to make it easy to operate the sling while preventing tampering. All are reasonable to solve, so I'm looking forward to its implementation!
Many of the hardest parts of the concept to implement and test were not addressed. The target resets and sensing mechanisms for hits were not explored. The effects on gameplay of number, scale and position of the targets was not explicitly explored either. It appears that it may be too difficult to hit these targets for engaging gameplay. Perhaps a deeper investigation would have been helpful?
Making sure that these parts are *hyper durable* is the big concern here. They're going to take a beating.
Structuring the room so that it is 'longer' and 'skinnier' will help with keeping targets out of the arms reach of guests when this is done at full scale.
I think you did a great job in testing the different mechanisms that would create different motion as well as how the balls would be returned. It might have been nice to see how you would keep track of how many points people scored (i.e. trying out the IR sensors to see if it would actually work).
All the videos make it easy to see and understand the many different functions of this sketch model. The two types of moving sensors, along with the ball return system seem to be well thought out for functionality. With all these parts, I am not entirely sure what was intended to be evaluated for the model? Were you looking to asses player experience? Number of targets needed? Did it meet your expectations, or if not what needs to be revised? Going forward another question might be how reliably IR sensors work which could either be shown by referencing to a similar application where they are used or by adding them to the works like model.
Like I said above, you covered a lot of ground here, and I think it's providing you with some valuable insight as to what direction you want to head next. I like how you have many elegant solutions here, especially utilizing gravity to feed the balls back to the players. You did a great job exploring some critical questions you wanted to answer, and it seems as though you have a good idea where to move onto next and what adjustments you need to make.
