Current Build: http://www.tinyurl.com/collaborativesoundscape
Observations: While the user interface doesn’t look too different at the moment, the code running the program has been completely overhauled. Based on feedback I’ve received, I have decided to give the program “Basic” and “Advanced” mode. Many users are attracted to the colors and want to draw pictures. On more than one occasion I have seen people draw smiley faces as they explore. As such, just having the glockenspiel sound would be best for those situations. The advanced mode will have each color representing a different sound, including some loops that are designed to take 4 to 8 beats to play (such as a guitar strumming pattern of a chord for 4 beats.)
An additional observation, many people randomly create whole tone scales when they first play with the program. This is likely because of the visual pattern of skipping a block is a appealing to the eye. This project could actually turn in to some interest research regarding how people navigate a geometric interface without any instructions.
The Back End: The data logging is the biggest upgrade in this version. While it’s not writing to a file at the moment, it does track which block was clicked, the current color, the new color, who changed it (player name is assigned to a random number between 1 and 1000 at the time they join the room), and the time of the change. That data is printed as a string to the debug console in Unity.
In addition, I’ve made it so the program will only show one button to join the game (or start the server if nobody is connected.)
Next Steps: Figure out the interface for any buttons (change modes, mute, About), continue to build the complete sound library, and figure out how to log to a CSV file (probably enabled by a hidden keystroke so it doesn’t happen on everybody’s computers when they log on).
collaborativesoundscape 