Fly swat has been developed to meet some of the ICT teaching needs for users with multiple and profound disabilities. The ICT syllabus for people with these needs is broken down into a set of assessable skills for students who are not yet achieving the standard required for the mainstream ICT curriculum.
The game provides a means to develop and assess skills relating to awareness of ICT, understanding the concept of cause and effect within ICT, and practicing skills with input technologies (mouse and keyboard, and other assistive devices such as switches, eye gaze, or brain control interfaces) and improving timing and co-ordination with the ICT technology.
Fly swat is a game based around the principle of watching and swatting a fly. The fly has several modes of movement to map to tracking modes that are required by the curriculum, including horizontal, vertical, following an expected route, and random. The swat also has several movement modes. It can be stationary, auto track the fly in one axis (to allow one key/one click gameplay) or be moved left and right by either following the mouse or by key presses. These are described as either ‘user control’ or ‘one’ touch’ mode. In ‘user control’ mode the swat is moved manually by mouse or keyboard. In ‘one-touch’ mode the swat either moves automatically or is fixed and the gameplay is about timing of swatting the fly at the right moment.
Swat activation is by either mouse click or pressing the space bar. These inputs can also be mapped with external software to allow gameplay using assistive technologies such as switches, eye-tracking or brain control interfaces.
The game is visually stimulating and also contains audio. It records the high score during a session to provide additional stimulation to play more. The object of the game is to swat as many flies as possible in the 60 seconds available. At the end of the game the user sees their score and the highest score obtained during the current session.
A target can be shown to give the user a better indication of where the swat will fall.
Control |
Key |
Mouse |
Move Left |
Left arrow |
Move mouse left over game canvas |
Move Right |
Right arrow |
Move mouse right over game canvas |
Swat |
Space bar |
Left click click over game canvas in game play |
Fly Movement Mode |
‘M’ key |
Switches between fly movement modes – of horizontal, vertical, predictable or random |
Sound on/off |
‘N’ key |
Click on sound on/off button during gameplay or on the title screen |
Show/hide Target |
‘T’ key |
Click on target button during gameplay or at the title screen |
Fly Speed |
‘S’ key |
Click on Fly Speed button at title screen. Changes fly speed between slow, medium and fast |
One Touch Mode |
‘O’ key |
Click on One Touch Mode button at title screen. Switches between manual and automatic swat movement (only available in random fly movement mode) |
Help |
‘H’ key |
Click on help button (?) available on the start screen. This displays the instructions |
Restart game at Feedback screen |
Space bar |
Left click over game canvas |
The game is developed in JavaScript and HTML5 running in a web browser. It is available to play online at http://software.isrg.org.uk/vipi/flyswat/FlySwatIndex.html This game was developed as part of the ViPi project. More details of the project can be found here.
The ViPi KA3 LLL project (511792-LLP-1-2010-1-GR-KA3-KA3NW) has been partially funded under the Lifelong Learning program, subprogramme KA3 ICT. This game reflects the views only of the author(s), and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.