Mission: Star Tracker

Mission: Star-Tracker

Four controllers sit atop a projected playing space on a table. Circles in different colors are
projected around each controller.

Mission: Star-Tracker is an educational interactive that demonstrates research about perceptual blindness in the form of a multiplayer arcade game.

Players are given a simple task: collect the most energy by hitting the white stars into their personal goal. Once a star's energy has been collected, it becomes inactive, turns gray, and continues to bounce around the screen.

While the players are engaged in the game, two unexpected shapes fly around around the playing area. The first moves at the same speed as the stars, while the second flies by quickly. Both are gray, the same color as the inactive stars.

Four hands manipulate controllers in a projected playing space filled with stars.
In the foreground, a pac-man shape is projected alongside the stars. A red circle over the photo
indicates the position of the pac-man shape.

Most players don't notice the first shape flying by, but they are much more likely to notice the second, faster-moving one. This result was discovered in a recent study that complicated our understanding of the phenomenon known as perceptual blindness.

Long-standing research has shown that when people are focused on a given task, they can fail to notice an unexpected object even when it's right in front of them (the classic example being the Invisible Gorilla test). This more recent study replicated the results of the gorilla study with a similar test, and showed that results change notably based on the speed of the unexpected object.

The game in Mission: Star Tracker is designed under similar conditions to the study, allowing players to encounter this phenomenon firsthand (through their own experience or that of their fellow players).

A pair of hands peel a sticker off a sheet. Under the hands, a strip of paper contains five black shapes
in a row: a snowflake, three lines, a pac-man, a four-petaled flower, and an alien head. The pac-man shape is
covered by a pink pac-man-shaped sticker. Text above the shapes reads
"While in space, did you see any of the shapes below? Tell us what you saw by using the stickers."

After the game ends, each player is shown five potential shapes, and asked which they noticed during the game. They then see a replay of the shapes flying by, along with an explanation of the research, and are encouraged to discuss their experiences with each other.

Five people stand around the game table, choosing shaped stickers to put on strips paper.
A drawer in the side of the game table is open, showing a sheet of stickers inside.

Mission: Star Tracker was created in collaboration with Dipika Titus , Sophie Lee , and Joann Myung for the ITP class "Playful Communication of Serious Research". The game was built in Unity, using an overhead webcam and marker tracking for input and projecting down onto the playing space.

I worked on the content development, gameplay mechanics, and technical components for the project, while my teammates handled the physical components, theming, and visual design.