For my final project I decided to put the user experience and immersion as the main priority, while being eye-catching and unique.
So, my idea at the very basic level is the “Escape the Room” type. We have a transforming robot (and arduino one, and connected to p5.js) trapped in a big box, which has puzzles to solve. On the other hand, our main task is to help the robot, and interact with it. However, we have our own share of puzzles which can grant the robot inside something special (I would have to think this one through).
However, to make this one completely unique, I decided to form a story around it. The basic premise of the story is simple:
A.R.I.S. (Adaptive Recollection and Interface System) is a memory-keeping robot that gets stuck in a safe box’s shutdown room after being sabotaged. To restart A.R.I.S., the player has to answer both physical and digital tasks. The robot’s broken memories and changing personality show shocking facts about its past.
The player works with Arduino-powered machinery and p5.js-based digital tasks to find clues inside the box. These clues are the author of A.R.I.S.’s last-ditch attempts to protect secret information. The Utopia Protocol is a secret plan that these pieces point to. It could change the course of human history. But things get more dangerous when A.R.I.S. starts to doubt its mission and goes back and forth between being a friend and a possible threat.
At the end of the story, there is a moral choice, which I haven’t figured out just yet. However, based on some ways in which we have interacted with A.R.I.S means that the player can experience at least two endings.