Ubiquitous Ambient Gaming - Meeting April 1st, 2010
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April 1st, 2010
Research of a game
Contents |
Goal of the meeting
This meeting was made in order to find a game that would be fun and use ambient audio at the same time. The goal of this meeting was to imagine simple games, even if they would need to be complexioned later.
Two persons participated to this meeting :
- Nick Graham, who runs the EQUIS Lab and therefore has a knowledge in games and ambient audio.
- Jason Kurczak, who is doing a thesis on ambient audio at the EQUIS Lab.
During this meeting, we discussed several games and decided to keep one of them to develop it.
Ideas generated
Most of the games proposed were thought from already existing games.
Battleship
On a predetermined field size, a team would have to blow out all the ships from another team, the goal being to glow all the ships before the other teams does the same with yours. The game would start by having the teams place their ships. Then each player would try to find the ships, thanks to a kind of radar. Or they would send torpedos and hear how far and if they touched something.
This game would allow two teams to play together even if they are not in the same city, country or continent. Indeed, all they need to do if decide how big the field is, and then each team plays on the field.
A role game
A person would have a quest to accomplish. The person would have to move around the city, find clues, answer to enigmas, do actions.
Ways to introduce collaboration
Some of the actions would require several people, such as ‘I’ve got to be there in order to allow you to get the next clue 2 blocks away’.
Mine Sweeper
The idea is to have people walk into a field and try to find and defuse mines thanks to the ambient audio. Mines could not be seen but they could be heard, the sound would be used like a radar, bips would become quicker when a mine is close. Different sounds would be used to tell if a mine is active or defused.
Ways to introduce collaboration
Two teams could compete for defusing the most mines. Some mines would need more than one person to be defused. The idea of specific tools was also proposed : each player owns a tool that only allows him to defuse a certain kind of mine, so when a player finds a mine he can’t defuse, he has to call for help among his teammates.
Treasure hunt
This one is inspired from the mine sweeper above.
The idea is for a team to collect a much treasures as they can. But to open the chests, you sometimes have to defuse a bomb. Also some of the chests are empty, others are full. But ghosts are trying to keep the treasure, so they move the stuffs around, they place bombs on the ways to the chests.
This game is interesting because it allows both collaboration and game orchestration from the outside. Indeed, in order to counter to the ghosts, a team would have to work together, put together strategies. Moreover, the ghosts could be piloted in real time by another person on a computer.
Logical circuits
This game is the one that was selected at the end of the meeting to be developed. The first test will be made by doing a paper version of the game.
The game contains a logic circuit that players have to solve by powering power sources and discovering the nodes : the parts of the circuit appear along with the activation of the power sources or nodes. A circuit is composed of : power sources, nodes (AND, XOR), wires to link the nodes. The 2 teams use the same power sources but not the same nodes (they don't solve the same circuit). To get the circuit working, a team has to get all the needed power sources in the right state. The first team to get the circuit working wins. When a player is on a power source position, he can choose to turn it on or off.
The power sources will emit a sound so that the player can find them by following the sound.
