Location-Based Mobile Games Bryon Jones, Joe Garber, Rondey Smalls

3 Implementations ► Can You See Me Now? – S. Benford  Players playing tag in the street ► FIASCO – M. Chang  Street players claim street corners ► Feeding Yoshi – M. Bell  Virtual areas with virtual items

Can You See Me Now? ► CYSMN ► Game of tag between online players and ‘runners’  Runners are players equipped with GPS and WiFi connections within a specially made jacket ► Objective: The runners move through the city trying to find the locations of all of the online players

CYSMN Online Views ► View as seen by the online player ► Everyone seen as avatars ► Overhead view when moving / Zoomed in view of player when stopped or inputting text

CYSMN Runner View ► Runners see the view of the streets ► Use HP Jornada to get location of self and other players

Game Overviews ► Online users can only communicate through text messages ► Runners have walkie-talkies  2 Channels ► Prime channel heard by everyone including online users ► Service channel used to communicate with technicians

Research Purposes: ► New artistic form of gaming?  Award: 2003 Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica ► Evaluate location based technology

Results ► Continual WiFi communication losses for the runners  90.6% of losses for 5 seconds to 10 minutes  Require runners to either find a better location for service or call technician ► Blackouts with the GPS systems  Configured to not connect to low satellites  Slow connect time

Uncertainties ► Connected and Tracked ► Not Connected But Tracked  No Wi-Fi connection ► Connected But Not Tracked  No GPS connection ► Neither Connected nor Tracked  No connection on anything = time to call technician

Strategies to Handle Uncertainties ► Remove Uncertainties  Improve technology ► Hide Uncertainties  Make it so they are unnoticeable ► Reveal Uncertainties  Let certain players be aware of uncertainties ► Manage Uncertainties  Have a backup plan ► Exploit Uncertainties  Require certain user interactions

FIASCO ► Objective  Claim street corners as your own turf  Inspire creativity and branching out from people’s local social networks ► Historical Info  Situationists – 1950s

How to Play FIASCO ► Gamers do crazy things on the street corners and photograph them ► Upload photographs to server where other gamers can rate them ► Whoever has the highest rated photograph on a particular street corner earns that particular turf

FIASCO Design ► FIASCO does not use any type of portable device for connecting to the game ► Only technology used is the central server for storing the pictures & the rating system ► ‘Stunts’ are made up of an object, an action & a theme

Results ► In prototype, players performed more creative stunts than they would have outside the confines of the game ► Stunts were limited because of the predetermined objects, actions and themes

Feeding Yoshi ► Objective  To obtain the highest score for your team by feeding Yoshies their preferred fruit  To make an entertaining game that can be used worldwide

Feeding Yoshi’s Designs ► Game is played on a customized PDA ► PDA tracks players location by GPS and also determines Yoshi and plantation locations by short range WiFi access point detection ► Game encourages trade by auto-detecting other PDAs in use

Feeding Yoshi Game Play ► Players travel throughout the city finding Yoshies ► Each Yoshi has 5 preferred fruits out of 35 available in the game ► Players must find and collect these fruits to feed the Yoshies to gain points for their teams ► Teams are encouraged because trading of fruits within team members also gains points

Feeding Yoshi Results ► Most participants that played actively with their teammates found the game enjoyable ► A small number of participants found the game repetitive and without motive once they were behind the lead ► A number of participants said the game encouraged them to travel to parts of the city that they often did not and to explore

Feeding Yoshi Problems ► The limiting range of the WiFi detection made it difficult for participants to play the game in cars or on trains where the game was designed to be most played ► Due to the nature of the game, top scores were usually a result more of endurance playing rather than skill or luck ► Players in more urbanized cities are given a more distinct advantage with more WiFi points which made the game less enjoyable for others

Wrap Up ► Used WiFi & GPS = CYSMN & Feeding Yoshi  Players could keep in touch while playing game ► FIASCO – had to wait until return to computer to upload information  Less technology requirements  More action centered ► CYSMN had WiFi & GPS issues  Yoshi didn’t indicating issues with CYSMN equipment or implementation  However, 5 strategies for uncertainties still applies