Scream 'Em Up

Are you a bad enough dude to run around screaming?

Scream 'Em Up is a game that developed out of my interests in physical creativity. While the gaming market is flush with game systems that track body movement, most games use this advanced technology to track the player more closely--a legitimate game design strategy, but one that leaves out one of the most fascinating aspects of human movement, i.e. physical creativity. Most mainstream games do not support unrestrained, spontaneous, and joyfully ridiculous play, and my goal was (and still is) to see how to make one that does.

The game is a 2-player game styled like Space Invaders, except that to move the ship, the player must move laterally, and to shoot, they must scream into an iPhone. The way they shout (and the way that shout differs from their partner's) alters the way their bullets appear and deal damage. However, the game does not require one to focus on precise movement or matching to win--rather, it uses these types of awkward, silly, over-the-top inputs as a catalyst for more expressive and liberating play.

Scream 'Em Up was made for Parsons' Major Studio and Code Play. I developed the game and the iPhone app (ScreamPhone, which does the audio analysis) in openFrameworks. Scream 'Em Up was shown at Come Out and Play 2012 (After Dark).

You can check out the code here. The video above is the latest version, but much more footage of playtesting can be found on my blog.

Logo created by Skyler Balbus.