Senior Project - SketchCraft

Kerpoof is a Boulder-based company which hosts an educational and entertaining web site, kerpoof.com for children. The motivation behind Kerpoof's products is to create a fun, interactive environment aimed at instilling interest in creativity and discovery in their young audience. Kerpoof's previous Senior project, the highly acclaimed Picasso (later renamed Super Doodle), incorporates a shape recognition system that allows users to create elaborate and precise drawings. The goal of SketchCraft was to incorporate the existing Super Doodle engine into a drawing-based game that is fun, educational and creative.

The World of SketchCraft is an online, sketch-based video game. The project was written in ActionScript 3.0 using the Flex 3 Software Development Kit. Users sketch various objects to complete the tasks set before them. Using the Super Doodle engine, user-drawn shapes are corrected: based on the overall shape of the object that the user drew, the game actually adjusts the shape to have straight lines, rounded curves, and square corners. Once the shape has been corrected, the shape enters the physics world. Based on the material that the user used to draw, the shape is assigned a set of physics properties. Example properties include the shape's friction coefficient, mass, and coefficient of restitution. In combination with the object's initial position and shape, these properties govern the object's behavior in the physics world. For example, a rubber object bounces when it comes in contact with another shape, while an ice object slides.

The variety of possible drawing materials adds another degree of complexity to the game. Using various shapes and materials, the user must intelligently develop a method of "beating" each level. Level goals range from building a tower to catapulting objects into the "win" area. This combination of drawing and physics based game play make SketchCraft unique.

In addition to this basic game play, SketchCraft also provides a level editor and a framework for further extending the game's capabilities. Ultimately, users will be able to construct and share new levels with each other and developers will be able to use the framework to extend the game in new directions. The project has won two awards: a "Best of Section Award" at the Spring 2009 Engineering Design Expo, as well as the 2009 Lloyd Fosdick Award given to "exemplary collaborative projects that include CU Computer Science undergraduates as participants."