“Initial Reality” (location aware roleplaying game)

Tian Li & Nate Hansen

Overview

Review of underlying concepts Related work Demonstration Project architecture Game architecture Implementation (how its going) Evaluation Future work

Review of basic project concept Description of the application

Passive game running on iPaqs Can detect remote copies of same game running,

and communicate via Bluetooth Exchange state between iPaqs such as your

Character’s health points or attack points Uses Location Awareness to trigger events If within range of some pre-programmed location,

generate a monster or pick up an item Bring computer games into real world

Review of basic project concept What related work have you found?

Toothing Anonymous Bluetooth on cell phone British phenomenon

Can You See Me Now? is a game that happens simultaneously online and on the

streets Tracked by satellites collaboration between Blast Theory and the Mixed Reality

Lab, University of Nottingham Pacmanhattan

Washington Square Park

Demonstration

What will the demo be like? Game running in real time Play a log of a days worth of gaming

Prospective user Carry ipaq with game running all day Periodically checks status (on bus, between classes) Possibly has to go somewhere to update health Change player equipment/strategy

How does it compare to your original scenario Main game scenario is the same as origial No scavenger hunt

Top Level Architecture

Description of Public Classes Main.java

Runs the main game loop and global variables such as current location, waits for events from Bluetooth, and access information from other classes

Location.javaGets absolute coordinates from PlaceLab package and translate that into meaningful location with respect to our game

Events.javaA database of precompiled events that will be triggered either via entering a key location or due to a timer. One example is walking on top of a healing point and triggering an event which heals your character.

Player.javaholds information about the player, this may be exchanged with another player depending on privacy settings

Character.javaholds information about your pet such as health points, equipment, and battle strategies

Location.javaEvents.javaCharacter.java

Player.java

Main.java

Bluetooth.java

BLUETOOTH

PLACELAB

Implementation

What is done? All parts of game code Integration of placelab

What isn’t? P2P Bluetooth communication

What issues remain? Windows CE does not come with any API for

Bluetooth communication Alternative is to use serial (Herald)

our bluetooth/java problem

Evaluation

How well does it work? It is functional but there are missing component

What metrics are you using? Is the game fun? Reliable. Does it crash and loose your player info? Usability. How much time is wasted navigating the gaming

interface? What conclusions can you draw?

The game has potential to be commercially marketable

Future Work

What is there left to be done that won’t happen this quarter? Better GUI

What are some directions in which to take the project and why? Even better GUI Team play Variety of games based on the Bluetooth/placelab

architecture, that run on dedicated hardware