Group 9 - Project 3 Ubiquitous Computing, Autumn 2006 – Umeå University (SWEDEN) Light-A-Lamp

A perfect way to make life more joyful is to play games, and the best way of playing games is if you do it with your friends. That’s why we have chosen to create a multiplayer game that you can play together even if you are not at the same place. The game is inspired by the classical game Whack-a-Mole, but our version is called Light-a-Lamp. To see our demo-movie, click below! Introduction

The original game, Whack-a-Mole, is an arcade game consisting of a box with five holes on the top. In each hole there is a mole that sometimes, in random order, pops up from the hole and the player is then suppose to hit the mole with a club. The player gets points when hitting the mole. In our project plan we specified that we wanted to create a one player extended version of Whack-a-Mole. This ended up with as creating a 2 player extended version of Whack-a-Mole with availability to play over network. To read any further about the two areas inspireing our work, click on the hyperlinks below: Related Works

- The display on top of the game board informs the user what to do to progress. - The 4 white buttons each has 4 LEDs in different colours. - To right hand side of the game board you will find a button to start a new game. It is only clickable when a game has not started. - At the bottom of the game board you will find two light sensors. Game Surface

The games precondition is the two players have to be connected to the server at the same time. As this system is implemented as today you will have to connect the game board to a computer with some kind of network. After being connected to the server, which is done easily by entering the ip-address you wont need the computer anymore (except for the connection of course). To be successful in the game you have to light all the lamps on the game board. The tricky thing is that when the other player lightens a lamp the corresponding lamp on your game board will be turned off. In between lightening the lamps you will have to put both hands on the 2 circles (light sensors) to be able to hit the next button. During the game the display will inform you on what to do next. The game ends when all the lamps are turned on or off. To be able to play a rematch one of the users has to enter the button on the right hand side of the game board. Server Player 1 Client Player 2 Client Access Database System Description

In a ubiquitous computing point of view Light-a-Lamp is designed according to Bellotti, V. & Edwards, K. (2001, Intellgiabillity and Accountability: Human Considerations in Context Aware Systems) four design principles that make a system intelligible and accountable. - Informing the user - Provide feedback - Enforce identity and action disclosure - Provide control to the user To inform the user the game has a display that informs the user what to do to move on further with the game. The users will get direct feedback when lighting his/her lamps when entering a button. When player 1 lights a certain lamp on the game board the corresponding lamp on player 2s game board is turned off. The progress of the game is indicated by the four lamps which as many as possible should be turned on for a victorious game. 10 times per second the user will be updated on the current status of the game. To make the system as easy to use as possible each button represents a certain function and the LCD display informs in what order they should be entered. Our system lets users to make changes to the game conditions by entering different buttons. This system also allows players to compete over a network (client - server) in real time which makes the game easier to use and access if you want to play against other players since it is not necessary to be in the same physical room to play against each other. Discussion