ANNOYING!

Ok so it sounds terrible. I have removed all of those noises. Tried lots of different variants but it is very unplesent. Have now re-themed it so all of the noises are sythetic music.

Bugs now have a pulsing sound created using a sine wave frequency when moused over
also made them pulse(grow shrink) in time with the noise to make them more like "soundshapes".

The other noises have been replaced by various "tunes" that I think fit the movement/reaction. Will see if I can upload them

Sounds

added a cats purr for a moused over happy bug
added a ladies scream for when a bug dies and all the other run around
added an explosion for when a bug was hit
added a babies giggle for when the cursor was stolen

additions

Bugs now react with the edge of there pen. If they are stuck on the wall they gradually go blue. If they are there to long they pop and die. This scares all the other bugs making them less happy and sends them all running around randomly for a couple of seconds.

Also if the user has a collection of more than 5 bugs under the cursor the bugs steal it and the user is left cursor-less.

Bugs!

So currently my creatures are round circles and will be hence forth known as bugs.

Basically the program creates a set amount of bugs(still unsure of the exact number) that wobble around the screen. They have a happiness variable that dictates there color and behviour.

Green -  happy and will be attracted to the mouse cursor.
Red - unhappy more erractic and will flee from the mouse cursor.

while the user holds the cursor over them they will purr and gradually get happier(greener) and stop moving. If the user clicks the left mouse button he spanks(hits) them and they instantly get unhappy.

New idea!

So pretty much scratched my musical drawing program. It didn't have enough personality. So now im thinking I want the user to interact with little creatures. Taking inspiration from ant farms and tamagotchi.

These creatures, there will be more than one on the order of 10-20, will react to mouse over and clicking will react with one another and the edge of there "pen".

back to the drawing board?

So having presented my ideas, the feedback I received was my software was too predictable and all user generated. ie my program had no personality.

Various ways I could fix this would be -

• Hide the play head
• Have multiple play heads that evolved(transformed!)
• Make the shapes move

However with these ideas I would still end up with buttons for the user, which again wasn't liked and with the effort the user would put in to create a "drawing" that dint "behave" would frustrate rather than entertain.

Sketches

place holder

Second project - inital ideas

First off my initial ideas were to create some kind of draw program. The user would draw various shapes and the canvas would have a play head that ran across it. The various shapes would trigger separate notes and tones. Effectively letting the user create music.

My initial sketches will be in my next post.