Ambient Quest: An ambient game simulation

1. Ambient Quest:An ambient game simulation Mark Eyles Advanced Games Research Group Department of Creative Technologies Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries Emerging Issues in Game Design

2. If the seminal 1976 ambient music album Music for Airports became a 21st century ambient role playing game, what would it play like? Emerging Issues in Game Design

3. Overview • Games • Computer role playing games • Computer technology • Ambient intelligence • Pervasive games • Ambient music • Ambient games • Ambient Quest • Ambient games future Emerging Issues in Game Design

4. What is a computer game? • An interactive entertainment played against, or with the aid of, computer generated characters or tokens in a computer generated environment. • A single player game has a series of interesting obstacles to overcome in order to gain rewards. • A multiplayer game has a series of interesting obstacles to overcome at the expense and/or with the help of other players to gain rewards. Emerging Issues in Game Design

5. Computer game properties: Commitment to play • Learning curve • Play time • Civilization 2 vs. Tetris vs. Hangman Emerging Issues in Game Design

6. Computer game properties: Location and movement • Fixed (Console, PC, Set top box) • Mobile (Mobile phone, Nintendo DS) • Require movement • In one location (Football, Eye Toy) • In many locations (Alternate Reality Game) Emerging Issues in Game Design

7. Computer game properties: Commitment and movement Emerging Issues in Game Design

8. Role playing games • To suggest a definition of computer role playing games: • Look at the history of RPGs • Look at the game play in RPGs • These two approaches then inform a definition of role playing games Emerging Issues in Game Design

9. History of role playing games • Pen and paper and computer role playing games formalise the playful role playing of childrens’ make believe worlds by adding a set of rules • This formalisation of role playing allows details to be shared, so that the game can be shared and seen to be played fairly according to an agreed set of rules • A key component of role playing games is stories Emerging Issues in Game Design

10. Chauvet Pont-d'Arc Story telling Le Voyage dans la lune • Spoken • Pictures • Cave paintings (30,000+ years ago) • Written • Gilgamesh (around 2000 BC) • Moving images • Cinema (from the 1880s) • Interactive • Colossal Cave Adventure (1975ish) Emerging Issues in Game Design

11. Table top war-gaming 1 • Kriegspiel • 19th century • Lieutenant Johann von Reisswitz based on a design of his father Baron von Reisswitz • Players move tokens representing troops around a map, under the guidance of an umpire • Assured Prussian victories Emerging Issues in Game Design

12. Table top war-gaming 2 • Little Wars • A set of table top war-gaming rules • H. G. Wells - 1913. • Commenting on Kriegspiel: • ‘as it is played by the British Army, is a very dull and unsatisfactory exercise, lacking in realism, in stir and the unexpected, obsessed by the umpire at every turn, and of very doubtful value in waking up the imagination, which should be its chief function’. (Wells, 1913) Emerging Issues in Game Design

13. Fantasy literature • J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit, 1937 • The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1954 to 1955 Emerging Issues in Game Design

14. War-gaming + Fantasy • Chainmail • First table top role playing game,1971 • Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren • Dungeons and Dragons • Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), 1974 • Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson Emerging Issues in Game Design

15. Evolution of computer role playing games • Start with text adventures • ‘Advent’ or ‘Adventure’, written by William Crowther ‘around 1975 give or take a year’ • Expanded by Don Woods to Colossal Cave Adventure in 1976 Emerging Issues in Game Design

16. Evolution of computer role playing games • Zork, 1978, released by Infocom 1980 Emerging Issues in Game Design

17. Evolution of computer role playing games • Add role playing • Richard Garriott’s 1979 Apple II game Akalabeth Emerging Issues in Game Design

18. Evolution of computer role playing games • Character attributes • Ultima 1, 1980, developed by Richard Garriott, published by Origin Systems Inc. Emerging Issues in Game Design

19. Evolution of computer role playing games • Control a party of characters • Race and character class mechanisms • Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, 1981, Sir Tech Software Emerging Issues in Game Design

20. Evolution of computer role playing games • Advances in technology… • Improvements in graphics • Increasing sophistication and complexity • Addition of 3D graphics to Multi User Dungeons …but retaining core RPG mechanisms Emerging Issues in Game Design

21. Role playing gameplay mechanisms • Role playing game mechanisms have remained very similar • Compare Ultima, 1980, with Oblivion, 2006 Emerging Issues in Game Design

22. Role playing gameplay mechanisms • Mechanisms commonly found in RPGs: Emerging Issues in Game Design

23. Role playing gameplay mechanisms Emerging Issues in Game Design

24. RPG mechanisms in other game genres Emerging Issues in Game Design

25. Core features of RPGs • Choice of player races • Choice of player classes • Player attributes • Player skill development • Experience points and levels Emerging Issues in Game Design

26. Suggested definition of computer role playing games • In computer role-playing games players control one or more characters that gain ‘experience’ through the completion of game objectives. The ‘experience’ is manifested as player moderated changes in player character attributes (‘strength’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘luck’ for example) which allow the player character to evolve over the duration of the game. • Additional player character customization is facilitated through modification of character differentia such as race and class when initiating a player character ready for play and by game-play educed character modification during play, such as development and improvement of a skill by repeated use of that skill, or the spending of ‘skill points’ gained when levelling up. • The player character descriptors (attributes, differentia and game-play educed modifications) affect the in-game interactions between the player character, non-player characters and items in the game environment. The environment, objects, characters and interactions are effected in a virtual environment. Emerging Issues in Game Design

27. Ambient technology • This section starts with some assumptions about ambient games that will be made explicit later: • Ambient games are as ‘ignorable as they are interesting’ (Eno, 1978) • Consequently it should be possible for the player to ignore the game, if they wish, while still playing it • The game should physically surround them • First we will consider the growth of computer technology and its future Emerging Issues in Game Design

28. Growth of computer technology Emerging Issues in Game Design

29. Growth of computer technology • One computer – Many users • Charles Babbage designs a computer 1821 • EDSAC 1 (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) 1949 the world’s “first complete and fully operational regular electronic digital stored program computer” (Jones, 2001) Emerging Issues in Game Design

30. Growth of computer technology • One computer – One user • 1981 IBM introduced the ‘personal computer’ Digital Rainbow 100 1982 http://pc-museum.com/officewing.htm Emerging Issues in Game Design

31. Growth of computer technology • Many computers – One user • The current state of play Emerging Issues in Game Design

32. Growth of computer technology • Ambient intelligent environments (the future) • Massively many intelligent computers – One user Tom Cruise in Minority Report http://www.visionnet.be/parahologram.html (Everyone is a user, not just Tom Cruise) Emerging Issues in Game Design

33. Ambient intelligence • There are a number of different technologies that are enabling the development of ambient intelligence: • Interconnectivity • Artificial intelligence • The proliferation of computers • These technologies support ambient intelligence, which has: • Ubiquity • Transparency • Intelligence (Aarts et al., 2001) Emerging Issues in Game Design

34. Ambient intelligence - Ubiquity • A massive number of interconnected computers are embedded in the environment • ‘It is invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere.’ (Weiser, 1996) Emerging Issues in Game Design

35. Ambient intelligence - Transparency • Transparency indicates that ambient intelligence environments are invisible and in the background (Aarts et al., 2001) Emerging Issues in Game Design

36. Ambient intelligence - Intelligence • Intelligence relates to the interfaces and ways these interconnected computers respond and interact with people through user friendly interfaces. Emerging Issues in Game Design

37. Ambient intelligence predictions • By 2010, when Intel expects that every chip it produces will have an antenna, there will be around 1,000 microprocessors per person • Harbor Research predicts that by 2010 worldwide revenues from network-related devices and associated services will be $800bn, around half of which will come from valued-added apps and services. Department for Trade and Industry http://www.nextwave.org.uk/docs/markets.htm Emerging Issues in Game Design

38. Ambient intelligence • Ambient intelligence environments offer a promising technology for creating pervasive games • We will now consider pervasive games and ambient games Emerging Issues in Game Design

39. Pervasive games • Pervasive games are games which extend gaming experiences into the real world • They include locative games in which players move into the real world while playing and their position and actions in the real world affect, and are affected by, events in a virtual world (Waern, 2006) Emerging Issues in Game Design

40. Pervasive games • Location based games, especially using mobile technologies • Example: Uncle Roy All Around You • Street Players use handheld computers to search for Uncle Roy, using the map and incoming messages to move through the city.  Online Players cruise through a virtual map of the same area, searching for Street Players to help them find a secret destination. http://www.uncleroyallaroundyou.co.uk/ Emerging Issues in Game Design

41. Pervasive games - Augmented reality • Overlaying computer information onto the real world • Example: ARQuake at the University of South Australia http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/projects/ARQuake/www/index.html Emerging Issues in Game Design

42. Pervasive games - Alternate reality "...an obsession-inspiring genre that blends real-life treasure hunting, interactive storytelling, video games and online community...” (Borland, 2005) • A game in which events occurring online in a game world affect and are affected by game events in the real world • Example: Perplexcity http://www.perplexcity.com/ Emerging Issues in Game Design

43. Pervasive games • Ambient games are a type of pervasive game • The pervasive game examples mentioned vary from ambient games in • The intention of the games (ambient games create moods, they are not treasure hunts) • The commitment the player makes to the game (they do not have to put on back packs of computer equipment) • The level of attention required from the player Emerging Issues in Game Design

44. Pervasive and ambient games Emerging Issues in Game Design

45. Ambient music • Ambient music informs ambient games • Brian Eno coined the term ‘ambient music’ on his 1978 album Ambient 1: Music for Airports • In the sleeve notes of Music for Airports Brian Eno gives a definition of ambient music: • “Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting” (Eno, 1978) Emerging Issues in Game Design

46. Ambient music • “I wanted to make a kind of music that would actually reduce your focus on this particular moment in time that you happened to be in and make you settle into time a little bit better.” (Eno, 2003) • Think about the ways games might do this while accommodating many levels of attention and intervention Emerging Issues in Game Design

47. Defining ambient games • Progress Quest - a game that requires minimal player intervention (www.progressquest.com (Fredricksen, 2004)) Emerging Issues in Game Design

48. Defining ambient games • Imagine a game similar to Progress Quest, call it Ambient Quest, in which, when the player starts the game, their actions in the real world affect progress in the game world Emerging Issues in Game Design

49. Defining ambient games • The Ambient Quest game world consists of a virtual environment containing quests to complete (achieved by defeating monsters at various locations) Emerging Issues in Game Design

50. Passive Active Defining ambient games • The player chooses the degree to which they wish to manage events in the game • At one extreme the game runs itself, gathering data from the player’s actions in the real world and automatically applying this to the game world • At the other extreme the player can determine how the real world data is applied in the game world, micromanaging game interactions. Emerging Issues in Game Design