Interweaving Mobile Games With Everyday Life

1. Interweaving Mobile Games With Everyday Life Marek Bell, Matthew Chalmers, Louise Barhuus, Malcolm Hall, Scott Sherwood, Paul Tennent, Barry Brown – University of Glasgow, UK Duncan Rowland – University of Lincoln, UK Steve Benford, Alastair Hampshire, Mauricio Capra – University of Nottingham, UK. Presented by : Shradha Kaldate

2. Introduction • Study of location-based game called Feeding Yoshi • Extends location based game into • Seamful design • Interweaving experiences with everyday life.

3. Key Issue in Ubiquitous Computing • The impact of variation and or uncertainty with regard to location and network. • Strategies proposed for dealing with it: • Removing • Hiding • Managing • Revealing • Exploiting (eg: U. Glasgow’s game Treasure).

4. Interweaving experiences with everyday life • Ubiquitous computing should be woven into the fabric of everyday life. • Mogi – a location based game for mobile phones and web. • ‘-ing’ game i:e a game one plays while doing something else. • GIS is used to make a proportion of game event relate to existing local activities. • Different aspect of game play happen at different time and different location. • The flexibility of when and where to play, is a vital factor in the game’s success and longevity.

5. Feeding Yoshi • A mobile multiplayer game that is played over a relatively long period. • The game requires players to explore private and public 802.11 wireless networks. • Played in teams – the play mixes individual play with team play.

6. Feeding Yoshi – The Game • Aim: Each team member should collect as many points as possible, by feeding Yoshis the fruit they desire. • Yoshis are scattered around the city and constantly hungry for five fruits, of seven varieties. • Players must first collect seeds from Yoshis themselves. • Feeding a Yoshi one of his desired fruit scores 10 pts. • Feeding a Yoshi a fruit it does not want result in the player loosing 10 pts.

7. Feeding Yoshi – The Game (cont’d)

8. Feeding Yoshi – Technology • The game runs on 802.11 – equipped PDA • The Yoshis and plantations that are detected while playing the game are actually wireless access points. • Secured networks become Yoshis • Open networks become plantations. • Feeding Yoshi do not transmit any data over the open network it discovers.

9. Feeding Yoshi – Uploading Scores • Players manually upload their scores at the game website using ‘score voucher code’. • Score voucher code uses PDA’s MAC address as unique key to encrypt their current scores and current time to prevent cheating. • When a code in entered on the website, decryption is attempted using the MAC address of every PDA in the game.

10. Feeding Yoshi – Swapping Fruits • Swapping fruits between players is achieved through 802.11 peer-to-peer ad hoc networking between PDA’s. • Each game client continuously broadcasts its own existence on a specific ad-hoc network SSID while also scanning for broadcasts from other. • The exchange itself is done through traditional TCP socket connection.

11. Seamful Design • A seam is a break, gap, or ‘loss in translation’ in a number of tools or media, designed for use together as uniformly and unproblematically experienced whole. • Ideally, fast and free network access should be available wherever we go – currently not possible • Feeding Yoshi takes advantage of characteristics of variations in 802.11, as deployed in urban environments. • Spatial variation • Access control variation

12. Studying Yoshi – Teams and Location • 4 teams • Location : Glasgow, Nottingham, Derby • Game was played for 7 days (Tues to Mon) • Participants were not in the computer science or HCI fields. • Daily dairy, transcripts of interview and system log were used to summarize each team’s game play strategy.

13. Team Details

14. Studying Yoshi – Result of Game • Derby team put great effort into the first day’s play scoring over 10000 points. • “The game is highly addictive when a ‘good spot’ is found.” • “During middle of the week, the game lose interest. It gets a bit repetitive.”

15. Players’ Experience of Feeding Yoshi • While underlying interaction was engaging, players’ overall experience were quite varied. • Three key issues: The fit of game with • Pattern of everyday life • Friendship and collaboration • Impact of location

16. Fitting with Patterns of Everyday Life • Key factor for success: The amount of time players were prepared to invest in the game. • Two modes of play: • Change one’s patterns of everyday life by deliberately setting aside time for special, often prolonged game sessions. • Augmenting daily routines by interweaving the game with normal activities.

17. Fitting with Patterns of Everyday Life

18. Fitting with Patterns of Everyday Life

19. Impacts on the pattern of everyday life • Play at work • Some gained advantage by being able to play at work where WiFi was available, including 3 Derby team members. • “I think we might have got into trouble at work” – a Derby team member. • Playing during the journey • 8 participants enjoyed playing during journey • Planning time with Yoshi in mind • 5 participants would take different route to their destination. • Drive-by-Yoshi

20. Friendship and Collaboration • The more time team members spent together, the higher score they got. • Trading, exchange of information, excitement and competitiveness. • Participants from all teams except Nottingham went out together in pairs at least once during the game. • The two teams that scored lowest had players who did not see each other over the course of the game

21. Easiest place to play are localities where Yoshis and plantations are mixed with each other. There was a temporal as well as a spatial variation in play. Location also affected how it felt to play the game. A good location for Feeding Yoshi was determined both by the distribution of WiFi and its feel. Kelly lives by the door of the block. We’ve got Laurence down the bottom. There’s Lamar, who’s out here somewhere [pointing]. He’s always a nightmare to pick up. He always want a load of fruit…..He is the one you could never find when you wanted him. – a Derby Player I knew there were connections, like at coffee shops and areas where there were more businesses. The Impact of Location

22. Implication for Redesign and Evaluation • The current game is perhaps too much about hard ‘graft’ than about skills or luck • Options: • Make the game time-limited, in terms of duration, requiring more skillful planning and interweaving play with patterns of everyday life. • Limit the opportunities to harvest and feed requiring more skillful use of information about Yoshis, plantations and the location and baskets of other players.

23. Implication for Redesign and Evaluation • One of the unfair tactics of current game is that player could repeatedly move between Yoshis and plantations, scoring lots of point with ‘too little’ effort. • Option: • Make Yoshis favorite fruit change and plantation to be exhausted after a while so that players keep seeking out new territory, with new access point to seed and feed.

24. Implication for Redesign and Evaluation • Greater density of access points in metropolitan areas affords an advantage to players as compared to small city in the country. • Option: • Run games only between areas of similar expected WiFi distribution, or in same urban area, but even then there will be variation.

25. Implication for Redesign and Evaluation • Playing at speed was difficult due to transient nature of WiFi. • Option: • Quick and automatic interaction with Yoshis and plantation with detection triggering quick changes.

26. Thank You More about Feeding Yoshi