a game design workshop to support the elaboration of game ideas

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A game design workshop to

support the elaboration of

game ideas

Christos Sintoris, N. Yiannoutsou, N. AvourisHuman-Computer Interaction GroupUniversity of Patras

HCI International – Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive InteractionsHeraklion, Greece, June 22-27 2014

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Location-based mobile games

Location-based mobile games...are games that are facilitated by mobile

devices in such a way that the game activity

evolves according to player's location

the place often immerses the players in a

situated context where details of history,

culture and the available physical affordances

provide opportunities and influence the

choice of actions and interactions

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Location-based mobile games

Play is affected by the players' location

Location-specific contextual information isembedded in the play

Ivisible City Benaki MS MuseumScrabble CityScrabble

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How can we supportthe design of such

games?

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Game design workshops

They are focused, low cost activities that may involve many participants.

They produce rich data, easy tostudy.

They can be used for generating

design ideas, design patterns and study the design process

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The Pompeii game design activity (1/3)

Workshop Framework:

Modalities for interacting with the real world

Game mechanics as “actions, behaviors and control mechanisms” within a given gamecontext”

The learning dimension of acting in aninformation-rich space

The role of technology in mediating the cultural experience

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Single Task workshop: to design of a

location-based game for a specific site

The Pompeii game design activity (2/3)

The task is to design a game for the archaeological site of Pompeii, given design material and a design frameworkObjective is to observe design activity of different design groups and deduce common design patterns for this class of games

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The Pompeii game design activity (3/3)

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Workshop material

Map Interesting places

WorksheetConcept cards

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Workshop material

Map Interesting places

WorksheetConcept cards

11/Game design events

32 game designs were produced in 6

workshops in 4 different countries

2013 Summer School on Technologies for Cultural Heritage Zakynthos, GR

12/Game design events

Erasmus IP on cultural heritage management, Pecs, HU, 2013

13/Game design events

Game-based Learning Summer School in Autrans, FR, 2011

14/Games: the titles

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An example: “Pompeii Total War”

●The aim: Conquer and protect flagof/from every team (other players). Your devices assist you: You can seebuildings and NPCs through it. It alsofeatures a dynamic map of yourcamp flags and conquered flags. NPCs will give you hints and help youto solve puzzles and enigmas througha dialogue interface.

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●The rules.

–You must protect and conquer flags byanswering puzzles:a foreign flag can becaptured when resolving the puzzle thatan NPC guard gave to the team.

–You can recapture your own capturedflags by answering a new enigma to the NPC guardian - you can recapture a lostflag by answering again to the guard(another enigma of course).

–You have 2 hours for the contest.

An example: “Pompeii Total War”

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An example: “Pompeii Total War”

Game mechanics.RTS capture the flags - several located enigmas -time challenge (capture the most flags) -collaborative resolution (ubiquitous problems for teams) - building strategies with several roles in the team - communication with legendary knownNPCs (gods, generals, famous). Some enigmas: on the same flags there are several possible enigmas. They are asked in a progressive way: the easierfirst, the harder last. Puzzle: the mosaic withAlexander and find the place where the mosaic is.

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●Use of means and tools.

Tablets/smartphones with GPS (location), camera (augmentedreality) dynamic map of Pompeiiwith list of team flags (conquered) network connection to a ?? (–unintelligible) (Real time changes on the world).

An example: “Pompeii Total War”

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A non playing character asks the players tofind a picture in the pool. But to see the picture, the pool must be full. So they have tosplit into 2 groups. One must stay near the pool, the other has to find the valve. Once the valve is found, they open it and tell the othersto look at the pool.

Then all players have to go back to the NPC and explain who is on the pic and his role in mythology (Dionysos, god of wine). If they arewrong, the NPC tells them, but they loose the flag.

An example: “Pompeii Total War”

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Player behaviour and aesthetic result:Competition and pressure -discovery of amazing places-people (NPCs) - self efficacy improvement when a cooperative problem is solved - fun! - Learning a lot about past Pompeii.

An example: “Pompeii Total War”

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Open Design Patterns

Similar to: Pervasive Games Design

Patterns Davidsson, Peitz, & Björk,

2004, Björk &Peitz, 2007

Game Ontology Project (Hochhalter,

Lichti, & Zagal, 2005)

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Deriving design patterns

By applying methods from content analysis and grounded theory we identified codes in the design documents and used these codes to extract what patterns and strategies the designers followed

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Design Patterns

http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/l-bags/ (soon in English)

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Design patterns graph

The cooperation and competition between players/groups is adjusted by controlling information provided to them. Information Awareness regulates competition. In a same-place game, there is the possibility of information because the players are close (e.g. see and hear the opponent ) . Information can flow accidentally (eg a sound from the device other players may reveal some information ) .

Wrong information may be deliberately delivered (see patterns bluff, sabotage).

If the mobile devices are personal telephones of players, they can be used as phones for coordination and information exchange, bypassing or expanding information channels of the game.

Information awareness concerns management of the information that is known to the players, it may concern actions of other players or teams or information about them (such as their score, position in space, etc.). One example is the fog of war , where the actions of the opponent is hiding behind a veil .

Can be combined with diversification of players (two players with different characteristics have access to more

Information awarenessCooperation

Competition

Control

Players diversificationFog of war

sabotage

bluffing

Co-located players

25/Experimental use of design patterns

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Using design patterns

- Using it as a checklist

- Getting new ideas

- Refining an initial idea

- Checking old solutions to new problems

- Relating structure of the game to game elements

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The Open Design Patterns Repository

An open repository of design knowledge for location-based games

hci.ece.upatras.gr/pompeiigame/

Sintoris et al. (2014) on Design patterns

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Thank you

A game design workshop to

support the elaboration of gameideas

Christos Sintoris, N. Yiannoutsou, N. AvourisHuman-Computer Interaction Group, University of Patras

HCI International – Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive InteractionsHeraklion, Greece, June 22-27 2014