Karl Hendrikse

 Develop a video game to teach users concepts of rhythm in a fun, immersive way  Targeted to teenagers/adults of average gaming/musical competence

 Rhythm is important – a fundamental human skill  People aren’t that great at rhythm  I’m interested in rhythm

 That’s what the kids are into these days  Want to build on success of other edutainment titles, investigate improvements

 Play with plastic instruments...

...and match colored markers as they scroll towards you

 They do get people thinking about music; make people a bit more rhythmical  Music is kind of presented in a blur  Some bits can be pretty tricky/cerebral – require practice  Don’t reward the player for investing in the musical content – not much immersion in the music

 Commonly for kids, sometimes for adults  Children’s math tutors  Professional flight simulators  Generally developed on behalf of teachers to teach people things they need to know  Often give up a lot of the ‘tainment’ for the sake of ‘edu’

 Generally quite narrow in content  More like ‘tools’ than actual ‘tutors’

 With a teacher  Requires a teacher  Without a teacher  Requires effort and motivation from the user

Entertainment Education

Entertainment Education Bad teacher Very good teacher Good teacher With teacher

Entertainment Education Halo Guitar Hero Bad teacher Very good teacher Good teacher With teacher Flight simulator

Entertainment Education Halo Guitar Hero Bad teacher Very good teacher Good teacherMath Blaster With teacher Flight simulator

Entertainment Education Halo Guitar Hero Bad teacher Very good teacher Good teacherMath Blaster Textbook With teacher Tutor software Flight simulator

Entertainment Education Halo Guitar Hero Bad teacher Very good teacher Goal area Good teacherMath Blaster Textbook With teacher Tutor software Flight simulator

 Have been building the application in C++ using Direct3D 9  User interface built from scratch  Very much styled as a video game

 All the content is split into subject areas  Within each subject area are a few gameplay parts, which are short (say 1 minute) challenges  Various different gameplay modes  ‘Slideshows’ explain new concepts with musical examples  Interactive bits – counting, rhythm matching, drumming challenges  Lots of examples of music using the specific concept being taught

 Like levels in a game – unlock one by one  Content goes from easy to hard as the user progresses  Subjects are split into intro, basic, intermediate and advanced

 Drum kit (Wii version) has a Wiimote inside, connects via Bluetooth  Getting the Wiimote library all working and hacking it to support the drum kit

 Initially used DirectSound for audio  Latency was very bad – around 80ms  ASIO library is better – around 30ms 80ms Hit on snare drum Audio response from program

 Layout of gameplay sections, rhythms, slideshows etc. all defined in text files  Reload while running – easy tweaking of content

Demo goes here

 More content  User testing  Achievements  Polish