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D12.5 Delivery of the second City as Theatre prototype

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2. things that players do things that players attempt which are impossible etc other things that happen to players bystander observation of an game event other system related events 7 2 2 Things to do with players are observable issues a command go say things to do with movement O O O O leaves a destination silo arrives at a destination silo e normal special hub destination first return find another player is moved outside inside a destination by an effect attempts to go to a non existent destination attempts to go to the same destination attempts to find another player but cannot not here dead left or resting attempts to find another player who does not exist attempts to perform an action when incapacitated things to do with things O O O O O picks up a thing uses a thing has a thing used on them see uses a thing drops a thing attempts to pick up an unknown thing attempts to pick up a thing not present attempts to use when not holding nothing there attempts to drop something when not holding anything attempts to perform an action when incapacitated things to do with saying O says something things to do with info update status O requests update things to do with local events O is given a local event things to do with dilemmas O is given a dilemma 37 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5
3. TARGET AupIENCE DELIVERABLE IDENTIFICATION SHEET TABLE OF CONTENTS nen TABLE OF GURE osnonasnennonansassarresrasrnrerisrnnrnsrenranrastnsrasrasrarunierantinrnnristantastanranknnnAnEaEnn Enne nrnnnnrnsnnnnnnnne rennarar nennen ulnieanom 1 2 GAME DESIGN OVERVIEW sisstsiasssssncissasssatsanensasiaisensisaassansasransaitainnissanssnaeasashientsnandasdansstnsonssnssscensiionisanadaitaasnadcanndy 3 Hesearclr Goals 4r ee nie can uie dee M MEE Bol 3 Game Setting CEIniz pu c dei ek dectadeiases Story Line and Game PLAY EEN 3 Keywords and Automated Parsing essent tnn tenni tete ta three tentant etre tn 4 Message Pacing and Aggregation INTOQUCUOM ERES M Supporting Infrastructure Application Architecture SMS sending and receiving SMS handling and parsing Core Game eo To RR PACING and Aggregati Msiri eiai e 12 Message Nai Teo ER 12 4 GAME CONTEND ie 13 ege eet e N Authoring Process Content E CET Content EE 14 Content Heipers Content Breakdown Online Content 5 TECHNOLOGY amp DEVICES USED PC Workstation esse
4. destinations visited maybe this is just game events now sayssent received maybe this is just game events now SMS messages sent received Resting Being in non preferred play time is automatic resting What happens if you send a message less than an hour before the end of your preferred play time is resting deferred for an hour or not A resting player is n playing sub state resting not active Not visible to other players Still occupies a place in their silo Still carries the same object Cannot be found if otherwise successful same destination considering closed finder receives resting notification Cannot be affected by use of things Are not considered to be an observer for local events say use of things no effects are applied to you If a player has a current dilemma their dilemma timeout is in active state game time Therefore it is frozen while they are resting If a player has a hub timeout and is in a multi player hub andis on their own they are moved to a single player silo and their timeout is retrospectively reset to be a single player timeout and frozen since it is measured in active game time andis with someone else they are moved to a single player silo as above and the player they are with is moved on to their final destination as if the resting player had moved on see Player movement go when in a hub silo Note this skews hub experiences away from chat b
5. o Note special cases Note destination specific behaviours are handled by missions o effect on thing e no effector destroyed see destroyed outcome above An effect e g of using is defined by change of health o amount o Maximum o minimum change of description o kind no change replace append o text description text for message s plus generalising for local events dilemmas missions to include o move outside in current destination o move inside in current destination 7 1 3 Local event Game state Each local event is characterised by effect listof event scopes defining time s and destination s when where dilemma can be allocated An event scope is characterised by abegintime anendtime which may be the same as the begin time asingle destination A player receives each local event once having received a local event is recorded by the associated game event player receives local event Local events are only delivered to players in state active An event scope which becomes valid reaches begin time causes the associated local event to be delivered to all players in that destination if they have not already had it An event scope with end time begin time is only delivered to players in that those destinations at that moment Otherwise a player arriving after begin time inclusive and before end time inclusive is delivered the local event if they have not ha
6. tren 1o mm p and newer questions aha ns pet Thermarter psrticipon in the gyre ie va SNS on your mote pore You cam join in ef any Gene dureg the gene by atstee HA et the Hnbbel Arm Lifer Fin mo e detest chat peores e Hites hit ere nett ar ujit ip ubit eal gom herd Figure 3 The Player Website 17 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Operator Interfaces Day OF Tha Figuras Mod Preto Ge ER en Go Booknats Tok ep 0 SP E D rem am9mermem E 02 27pm Martin Where Can Go I Sp Far Today D Zen D r smi wewdn ve you dong wt a cet Ace you quelitied to use b CQ Taper RHARD s 3 av rti not butthe ioar night ke nisi to otter corre Ign DESMOND sad HELLO DAI There amp 5 nay seaming tet TTA n acra ded grey mag hero CO 15prn CORK coat yen please Do you have 20 9 nli D 18om RICHARD zi Would any of you tency a ouo of Figure 4 Player History The operator interface serves two main functions adding new players to the game and manipulating the state of the game for example starting and stopping the game or sending custom messages to players in response to help requests The interface is constructed around a set of web pages and JSPs backed by custom controllers that manipulate the internal Equip game state The game start and stop pages guide the operator through the process of opening or closing the game and the SMS proxy with a set of buttons indicating the cor
7. The first prototype of Day of the Figurines presented at the Laban Centre in 2005 involved operators manually reviewing and parsing incoming messages from players in order to determine what the player wished to do Although many players reported enjoying this improvisational aspect of the prototype this placed considerable constraints on the possibilities for automation and how easily the experience could be scaled to larger numbers of players For this reason this second prototype has introduced a palette of keywords which reflect a set of actions that a player can perform within the game in order to interact with the various destinations objects and other players All interaction with the game is now parsed automatically using these keywords and players must send messages using them in order to play the game Each message must begin with a keyword and optionally followed by an argument appropriate to the action a player wishes to perform The keywords available are as follows Gay text to be said to nearby players Go lt name of a destination to travel to Pickup name of an object at the current destination Drop currently held object Use name of an object either held or at the current destination Find player name at current destination Help returns a list of keywords and also notifies operator Update returns player s current status destination health etc Leave town quits the game A B C responds to a d
8. identifies its Thing Class Factory whatever A Thing class factory whatever has description s under discussion because of plurals has type o clothing always and only affects yourself o food always and only affects yourself o medicine affects incapacitated other if present o Other affects other if present specifies Thing life cycle o spawn point destination inside outside flag o target instance spawn count at start of game o actual spawned count o destroyed outcome disappear from game or return to spawn point if used or if abandoned in a hub silo or potentially after a long time out if abandoned specifies Thing use o whether it affects someone else determined from type o effect of use on using player using if no one else active is present or doesn t affect someone else effect see below o effect of use on using player using if no one else active and incapacitated is present or doesn t affect someone else effect see below o effectof use on using player using if someone else active present and affects someone else effect see below o effect on active subject if it affects someone else effect see below o effect on same silo active bystanders by definition someone has to be present probably just messages optional effect on same destination in out active bystanders is this a mission thing 24 19 09 2006 O IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5
9. 15 16 17 Die got frat 19 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Author interface Game board interface The authoring interface as described previously consists of an automatically generated set of web pages that enable the adding editing and deleting of Equip objects This is supported by a game specific configuration that only displays necessary fields with friendly names and an overview applet for viewing authored content by time and destination A full description of the authoring interface with screenshots and user manual can be found in D7 5 The game board is a shaped 2x2 meter table that shows the town of Day of the Figurines with its destinations Stylised cut outs of the destinations are folded up out of the metal surface Each player has a small figurine with a magnetic base which an operator moves on the game board when the player moves within the game Bellow the game board two projectors are mounted two holes in the centre of the game board allow the images from the mounted projectors be projected onto a mirror placed above the table the reflection of which is used to display the movements of the figurines These movements are shown as arrows projected onto the board and the name of the player is also displayed to aid the operator in identifying the correct figurine Figure 7 Augmented Board The game board is purely an output interface that is updated by the operators and also serves as a spectator
10. Game Event objects in the Equip2 data space where they are monitored by the Message Renderer component and by other supplementary components such as display and orchestration interfaces The game engine maintains an evolving game state within Equip2 which consists of a collection of game objects representing each Player a history of events that a Player has been involved in or experienced such as Local Events Dilemmas and Missions a number of Silos that contain players and are in turn associated with Destinations and a number of System events that are scheduled to happen at some time in the future and trigger further state changes The game engine is also backed by authored content which is defined as a number of static objects within Equip2 This content is queried as events within the game engine are triggered such as a player moving or interacting with a Thing or time elapsing within the game On each trigger the game engine queries the Equip2 data space to determine which game content is relevant for the current time and destination or in the case of an action triggered by a player the current context of that player This combined with the current game state informs the game engine of how to modify the game state Each action whether player or time instigated produces one or more Game Event objects which inform the Message Renderer component what a player has experienced and these are grouped into a session for each action For
11. LISTONETHING players present the following have been replaced with smart LIST PLAYERS 56 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 o LISTPLAYERSWITHDESCRIPTION o LISTPLAYERS o LISTONEPLAYERWITHDESCRIPTION o LISTONEPLAYER things held the following have been replaced with smart LIST THING HELD o THINGHELD o THINGHELDWITHDESC Things Talking about things A single game thing has o shortName gt systemName o ongName gt shortName no definite or indfinite article i e a some singular if thing is single e plural o desription gt longName Singular if thing is single 4 plural o cardinality of single game thing singular some many So A single game thing o indefinite article cardinality singular is a THINGSHORTNAMESINGULAR or hel a THINGLONGNAMESINGULAR e some arel some THINGSHORTNAMEPLURAL or ae some THINGLONGNAMEPLURAL e many are many THINGSHORTNAMEPLURAL or ae many THINGLONGNAMEPLURAL o definite article cardinality singula the THINGSHORTNAMESINGULAR or the THINGLONGNAMESINGULAR e some the THINGSHORTNAMEPLURAL or the THINGLONGNAMEPLURAL many the THINGSHORTNAMEPLURAL or the THINGLONGNAMEPLURAL N a small number some or many of a game thing class o indefinite article cardinality singular are N some many THINGSHORTNAMEPLURAL or are N som
12. NFO an update PLAYERHEALTH LIST_THING_HE LD MISSION_INFO LIST_PLAYERS LIST_THINGS things to do wt local events is given a message from local local event event effect things to do X with dilemmas player message from is given a dilemma dilemma allocation effect 46 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 message from dilemma response effect message from dilemma default response effect message from dilemma default response effect use As per update UPDATE REQU request EST do with missions message from is given a mission mission allocation effects message from mission stage effects satisfies a mission stage message generated by stage event completes a mission message generated by default stage event message from player in need allocation Eu PES peas TB nx sent ee a ceases FERT all peas 28 Don ERN AME 47 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 be on nearby PARTNERHEALT incapacita player H ted incapacitation player message sent to player when you are lying INCAP TP he Rea Jes ac TUR p ground You are by someone or sbi AYERHEALTH something else player you have been message sent killed to death dies PLAYER DEAD ito player when Thank you for they die playing Day Of The Figurines observer PARTNERNICKN AME has died Within moments message sent two men in green W PLAYER DE overalls come AD ue B along
13. NO SUCH COMMAND or a go to hell which causes a GO NOSUCHDEST o atthe beginning of their game o atthe end of their game o atthe beginning of the day o atthe beginning of the day delayed due to resting o atthe end of the day 58 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 o atthe end of the day early due to resting o after waking from requested resting o ifaplayerin the same silo as the player has sent a SAY message o if they become incapacitated o ifthey die o if they leave town o when they arrive at a destination including the HUB o when they meet another player in the HUB o when some one dies in the same silo as the player o as apart result of an effect e g during a dilemma mission local event o if some one uses a thing assuming there is a bystander destination wide bystander or recipent effect 7 6 2 Building Aggregation a Message Elements that can be used in an aggregated message or message part are Due to Game Events o when the player witness same silo E g E g another player leaving another player arriving another player drops a thing another player picks up a thing Destination specific information o what Thing s are present Silo specific information o which player s are present and active Player specific information o thatthe player has gone through a health boundary o the Thing the player is holding if applic
14. O O O responds to a dilemma defaults times out on a dilemma defaults does something else on a dilemma attempts to respond to a dilemma when no current dilemma things to do with missions O O O O O is given a mission satisfies a mission stage completes a mission defaults times out on a mission is assigned to a mission as player in need health related player things O O O O see experiences effect becomes ceases to be incapacitated dies attempts to perform an action when incapacitated other player state things o experiences effect o leaves town o Starts resting o becomes active stops resting o starts the game o game becomes active while playing e g start of day from other system events o game becomes inactive while playing e g end of day from other system events observations o ofany ofthe above operator related outside core game O player receives custom message 7 2 3 Other system related events are destination description changes destination opens closes local event begins local event ends game opens game closes game starts game ends thing destroyed thing spawned silo created 38 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 7 2 4 Authoring related events are unauthorised 7 2 5 Parameters Parameters Related events things to do with players player current destination curre
15. cached in the Destination See Destination Description Silo Hub Silos have a single description determined from a randomly selected Hub Destination Description when the Silo was entered This may be cached as descriptionText or looked up using des criptionID Destination Description All Destination and Hub Silo descriptions are specified by Destination Descriptions which additionally specify the time over which they apply and whether the non hub destination is open Text is descriptionInsideText if it has a distinct inside e g used in DESTLONGDESC if inside descriptionOutsideText e g used in DESTLONGDESC if outside 51 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 shortDescriptionInsideText optional and if it has a distinct inside e g used in DESTSHORTDESC if inside shortDescriptionOutsideText e g used in SDESTSHORTDESC if outside A description is a complete sentence EXCLUDING final full stop Thing revised singular plural proposal shortNameSingular if thing is single shortNamePlural for all things longNameSingular was description if thing is single longNamePlural for all things cardinality type single some many Note names should NOT include a the some etc Used in LIST THINGS LIST THING HELD Effect Effects are used in thing use local events dilemma mission They include description change option in particular description change type
16. dilemma on arrival then choose at random one that is in time destination scope and has not been done by player already and allocate Find when in a non hub destination Find PLAYERNAME if named player does not exist fail unknown player named player has left town or died find failure event named player is resting generate find failed resting event named player does exist o in same destination different silo finding player outside named player inside and destination closed fails as if the named player was not in the same destination otherwise finding player is moved to the named player s silo even if it is nominally full generating a find event and arrival and observations of arrival as if the finding player had just arrived at the destination and been allocated to that silo o in same silo player is notified as if they had found the player in a different silo their silo is not changed bystanders do not observe the event o notin the same destination find failure event Find when in the hub Does not work Saying Say Text of message is broadcast to all other active players in the same silo Act of saying is recorded Player friendship information updated accordingly Things Pick Drop Use If incapacitated a player cannot pick up drop or use If player becomes incapacitated while carrying a non clothing thing then the thing is dropped If player is carrying wearing a thing and picks
17. example when a player arrives at a Destination a game event is created for them that states that they have arrived and what Description is currently relevant for that destination a game event for each Local Event Dilemma or Mission that is in scope for that destination and game events for any players currently in the destination that may have witnessed the arrival if necessary 11 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Pacing and Aggregation Message Rendering The Message Renderer sends SMSs to players according to two paradigms every message to the system gets a timely response and actions that directly affect a player will always result in a message to them In order to create a slow response system all Game Events that require a message to be sent to a player are broken up into two categories instantaneous and delayed Instantaneous events are those that directly and immediately affect the player s state such as a player arriving at a destination being in the subject of a local event or being hit by another player These events are all intermittent and generated either by the system or by another player s action Other Game Events result in a delayed response namely those generated by a players message to the system such as a PICKUP or GO command or when they send a malformed message When the criteria for the Renderer to send a player a message are met the Renderer searches for other relevant information
18. incoming messages with a default message stating that the game is closed and when it is expected to reopen Secondly if for some reason the core application is not available and incoming messages cannot be delivered then the proxy application will cache he messages in Equip2 and retry until delivery is successful Similarly if the external SMS delivery provider is unavailable the proxy application will cache and attempt to redeliver outgoing messages This system ensures that if either the core game application or the external SMS provider are unavailable due to maintenance or due to an unexpected occurrence messages to and from players are not lost In addition to this the external SMS provider gives the ability to query the successful delivery of a message to a player s phone as opposed to the phone being switched off or the SMS inbox being full By providing an interface to this function the SMS proxy application allows the game operators to check whether a message has not only been sent but hassuccessfully been received by a player Finally the proxy application provides monitoring and emulation functions via a web interface for testing and debugging The interface displays all incoming and outgoing messages with information about the sender or recipient and the delivery status of the message It also allows an operator or developer to simulate sending and receiving messages to and from the core game application without having to use the
19. interface for players in the venue To update the game board the operators start the update process via a control window and move the figurines according to the projected arrows An arrow goes from the current position of the figurine on the board to the new position of the figurine on the board Operators can update the board any time although typically they will update the game board once an hour The figure below shows the control window for the board augmentation When the button start next board update is pressed the number of figurines that need to be updated is queried from the game server and displayed The operator can decide how many figurines he she would like to update at a time The augmentation is started by pressing the button turn projection on The operator uses a wireless Bluetooth mouse to control the display of the arrows when he she is at the game board Via the control window the operator can configure how the augmentation is displayed including the number of arrows displayed at a time as well as the layout and appearance of the arrows e g change font font size colour etc 20 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Spectator Interface ControlWindow for board augmentation Preview Update 2006 08 12 07 40 a m start next board update 17 figurines to update name at arrow name in a textbox Batch size Minber noe so taie turn projection on C show map Current batch 51 100 go
20. load when they die 5 P T NERNICKN AME s body into their battered white van and drive off attempts to perform an action when incapacita health boundary message sent change not to player on you a aw becoming HEALTHCH TP heat PLAYERHEALTH incapacitated or dying boundary change player PLAYERNICKNA ME catches a lift on a passing truck and eaves LEAVE Town Player_ leaves See EE town E GES Of The Figurines Please reply to this msg with any feedback observer PARTNERNICKN AME catches a lift W LEAVE TOW partner leaves on a passing truck N town and leaves town You won t be seeing them again 48 19 09 2006 experienc es effect IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 starts player player request rest no message resting player player begin rest and PLAYER REST BT write me end day END DAY observer W e PARTNERNICKN Not a great AME is resting message becomes player wake from ani WAKE You wake up and More l Geteste requested rest slowly realise description ps where you are in Include resting something like an up player player wake and PLAYER WAKE BT write me begin day START DAY observer W PLAYER WA PARTNERNICKN KE AME snorts loudly and opens their eyes with a starts player welcome to Day Of The Figurines PLAYERNICKNA welcome ME has been starts the message to dropped by a truck game WELCOME player to start at the edge of town the game You are PLAYERHEALTH W
21. many messages regarding all of the players in the parent Destination This second prototype introduces objects that the player can interact with within the game 5 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Missions known as Things Things can effect a players health be used on other players or act as devices to move one or more players inside or outside a Destination that is closed A Thing may be carried by a Player or a Destination although a player may only carry one Thing at a time Things spawn at specified Destinations and on use by a player may either be destroyed re spawn or remain in the player s possession There are five types of Thing Food affects the using player s health Clothing is automatically worn by the player on pick up Medicine is used on an incapacitated player in the same Silo Other is used on a randomly selected player in the same Silo BigBang affects all players in the current Destination Things have a variety of usage effects depending on their type which determine what happens to bystander players and the protagonist player and what messages they receive as a result Things have been introduced to provide a dedicated mechanism for players to help or to interact with other players for example raising a players health through the use of medicine or lowering it through the use of a weapon They also provide a mechanism upon which Missions can be built in
22. message From now on they interact with their figurine by sending and receiving SMS messages controlling its movements and actions and seeing events through its eyes The game involves a high degree of pre authored content in the form of key events that are scheduled to take place at different destinations Threaded among these events are a series of missions and dilemmas that confront players in which players use objects to try to help or hinder others and to maintain their own health Day of the Figurines is designed to be a slow game so as to reflect the nature of SMS messaging The game time takes place over the course of one fictional day However this is mapped onto twenty four days of real time during which the game is played for ten hours each day The first iteration of Day of the Figurines was hosted by the Laban Centre in London and played by 85 players over a month spanning August and September 2005 A detailed evaluation of this first iteration was given in the previous iPerG deliverable D12 4 drawing on a combination of player feedback via questionnaires analysis of system logs and ethnographic observation to unpack key issues concerned with both the player experience and the behind the scenes work that was required to deliver the game The second iteration of Day of the Figurines described in this deliverable represents a major reworking of the game both in terms of its content and the technology and processes used to deliver it In p
23. order to add more structure to game play This second prototype introduces Missions in response to feedback from the first prototype that indicated that some players found a lack of direction and structured player in the game and they did not know what to do in order to progress Missions may last for hours or days and have an explicit and concrete goal within the town for example helping a specific player or performing a specific task Missions may draw on a list of incapacitated players who require assistance or specific Destinations and Things when allocated Each Mission begins with a message sent to the player setting the scene of the Mission and instructing them what to do One or more Mission Criteria are then authored each of which has a specific trigger and optional requirement context and also states whether fulfilling this criteria completes or terminates the Mission For example a Mission may involve finding some clothing in order to keep warm In this case a Criteria is authored that is triggered by the player picking up a Thing of type Clothing This completes the Mission and the player is sent a message informing them of this There is also a Criteria that is triggered if the player runs out of time on this particular Mission An example of a more complex Mission is as follows the gig at the Locarno On Mission allocation the player receives the text a rat faced man in a waistcoat rushes up The drummer s be
24. rest default is 2 hours Help Help Logs player help event Reported to operator who can respond on an individual basis No other automatic effect on game state Dilemma response A B C If player hasnocurrent dilemma no dilemma event response has current dilemma o dilemma does not have corresponding option apply default response o dilemma has corresponding option apply the effect of that response to the player no visible effect to bystanders Other events Things used on See Player use effect of use of subject applies to subject Becoming active end of rest See Resting above Description changes Caused by effects i e player s use of thing thing used on player local event dilemma mission Health changes Most changes to health are results of effects other possibilities are hospital special case operator intervention Health of resting players cannot be affected by effects or hospital There is a potential mortality threshold of 10 ifthe player s health is greater than this before an effect then their final health cannot be less than this 34 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 There is an incapacity threshold of 20 and below inclusive players cannot move find pick drop or use when incapacitated they can only carry clothing There is an upper limit of 100 A health increase cannot make a player less half than as close to 100 as they w
25. specific thing class using a specific thing class arriving at a specific destination becomes active dying having health some value 26 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 leaving town e or mission timeout o required context criteria all of player carrying thing class optional player current destination optional player current silo contains active player in need optional e player current silo contains at least N active players in addition to player may include player in need optional o rank priority for conflict resolution o ends mission flag o if satisfied o custom effects if arrival pick up player in need dying player in need recovering player in need leaving town on player on player in need on bystander on bystanders in same destination in out but different silo o custom thing use effects if thing use effect on thing no effect or destroyed see destroyed outcome above An instance of a mission as performed by a single player is characterised by player identity mission identity status current completed timeout expires game time Mission allocation Caused by entering or leaving the hub see Player movement Note additional constraints on allocation to a particular player 7 1 6 Player Game State not had this mission before minimum previous mission count existenc
26. the town by sending and receiving SMS messages visiting destinations meeting other players witnessing events that take place and dealing with dilemmas that face them Physically Day of the Figurines takes the form of a massively multiplayer board game but one with which players can interact remotely via their phones A player enters a public venue to find a large scale table top model of an imaginary town They are asked to select their character from a display of plastic figurines They give their chosen figurine a name and a description which are entered into a database along with their mobile phone number Their figurine is then placed on the board at a random position in the town in order to introduce them into the game As they leave the venue they are given a small map of the town and a set of rules for the game An hour or so after leaving the venue the player will receive their first text message From now on they interact with their figurine by sending and receiving SMS messages controlling its movements and actions and seeing events through its eyes By replying to this first message with the name of a destination in the town their figurine is set on a path towards that destination Intermittently the player receives text messages to alert them when their figurine arrives at a destination and to nearby figurines with whom they can chat The game involves a high degree of pre authored content in the form of key events that are scheduled take
27. use of silos at destinations to manage the volume of chat and the introduction of message aggregation which involved automatically combining information about several events into a single messages so as to make maximum use of precious SMS bandwidth a technique that we anticipate to be more widely applicable across SMS based pervasive games Digital augmentation and physical redesign of the physical gameboard so as to provide a more compelling spectator interface to the game and also to make its operation more efficient and therefore scalable H 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 More sophisticated authoring operation and orchestration interfaces for the game supported by a back end database and webserver for managing the game content A key innovation here is that these interfaces and the supporting database and many java classes required for development are mostly automatically generated from some core Java bean specifications This document describes the second version of Day of the Figurines in a uniform IPerG standardized game design structure explaining the game design game flow game content employed technology user interfaces and the content of the software distribution Each IPerG game is described in this common format Please refer to document D5 3B for a ludological definition of pervasive games and a conceptual framework for understanding and discussing the domain of pervasive gaming The appendices to this deliv
28. C PICKUP_TBOSC they try and move but are incapacitated Default pickup success message sent to Default pickup Success message sent to bystander Default pickup clothes Success message sent to Default pickup clothes Success message sent to bystander Default success message sent PLAYERHEALTH and lie helpless you pick up THINGLONGNAM E ACTIONINGPLAY ER picks up THINGLONGNAM E you put on THINGSHORTNA ME ACTIONINGPLAY ER puts on THINGLONGNAM E EEE messages from thing use effects messages from thing use effects you put down the THINGSHORTNA ME ACTIONINGPLAY ER puts down THINGLONGNAM i 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 i ERR player clothes DROP_TPOSC observer clothes at least one thing in destination inside outside no thing at all in destination inside outside at least one thing in destination inside outside no thing at all in destination inside outside provided not due to failed pick up and use DROP TBOSC PICKUP THING NOTTHERE PICKUP_NOTHI NGTHERE PICKUP_THING NOTTHERE PICKUP_NOTHI NGTHERE USE_NOTHING HELD DROP_NOTHIN GHELD 45 Default clothes success message sent drop Default clothes success message sent to bystander drop ERROR Player tried to pickup an absent Thing ERROR Player tried to pick something up when things present Player tried to pi
29. E 7 6 DOTF BERLIN MESSAGE AGGREGATION AND PACING eene nnne nnne nnne nns tn sensns trina in 76 1 Sendinga EE IRE 7 6 2 Building Aggregation a Message 7 6 3 Aggregation priority in response to player action Table of Figure Figure 1 Supporting Infrastructure essere nennen nennen retener terere teret teens 8 Figure 2 Application Architecture eessseseeseeeeenenn nennen tne nene nennen nennen nente ente nne ene nennen 9 Figure 3 The Player EE 17 Figure 4 Player HIStory E 18 Figure 5 Adding a WE 19 Figure 6 Player Details Below Message Statistics eese 19 Figure 7 Augmented le EE 20 Figure 8 Augmentation Control 21 Figure 9 Spectator Interface ctn eerte trece ter eer Peer Do re deese dade 22 Deliverable 12 5 vi 16 11 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 1 INTRODUCTION This document provides a comprehensive overview of the game design of the second City as Theatre prototype Day of the Figurines It is based on a common IPerG game design description structure which covers the game design game flow game content employed technologies and user interfaces Day of the Figurines is a long term text messaging game for mobile phones that has been designed by professional artists The game follows a day in the life of an imaginary small town Players use their mobile phones to control characters in
30. ET E things to do with local events is EE cu a local event local event enevo perena siana e at start on arrival ECG ME is given a dilemma dilemma type hub arrive non hub arrive mission from mission if mission type responds to a dilemma dilemma response o defaults times out on aj dilemma default outcome dilemma defaults does something p default outcome else EE attempts to respond to aljresponse yl dilemma when no current dilemma is given a mission mission type hub arrive non hub arrive player in need required satisfies a mission stage mission stage oO defaults times out on a mission mission is assigned to a mission as mission other player player in need health related player things see also experiences effect becomes ceases to bej incapacitated flag changes health event incapacitated 40 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 effect affects health flag final health crosses boundary flag incapacitated affects description flag effect type local event dilemma dies experiences effect allocation dilemma response mission allocation mission stage player player in need bystander distant bystander thing use player player in need bystander distant bystander cause event starts resting Ez of preferred play rest message rest time if becomes active stops type start of preferred play end of rest message resting game NS active while pla
31. ID be short fits in a hub meeting message THINGDESCRIP description class Thing thing description TION of a thing THINGLONGNA Jong name class Thing thing longName ME of a thing PARTNERDESC description class Person partner descriptionText of a player that is being met PARTNERNICK short name class Person partner nickName NAME of a player that is being 54 19 09 2006 DESTLONGDES long special case Destination C description current destination desriptionInsideText or of a player s current destination descriptionOutsideText current according to player inside outside If undefined destination then long description could look up from Destination Description using current destination insideDescriptionlD outsid eDescriptionID IPerG FP6 004457 RECIPIENTPLA YER MESSAGETEXT LIST THINGS NO THINGS P RESENT PRESENT LIST PLAYERS NO PLAYERS nickname of the actioning player in a use event The nickname of the recipient player in a use event message text being passed in player mission and history appropriate listing of the things in destination and their descriptions no things present in destination show mission and history appropriate information about co located players no players present in silo class special case special case special case special case special case Deliverable 12 5 Player thing_actioner ni
32. _NOSUCHDE ST GO_SAMEDEST FIND PLAYER NOT PRESENT 43 hub and waiting for multiplayer meeting some time is a for another player i case have not been given the description the player didn t specify a destination that we know player already at destination target of find not currently in the same location as play Deliverable 12 5 you meet PARTNERNICKN AME PARTNERDESC RIPTION PARTNERHESHE seems to be PARTNERHEALT H on the way you meet PARTNERNICKN AME PARTNERDESC RIPTION HUBDESCRIPTIO N after a quick search around DESTSHORTNA ME you find PARTNERNICKN AME and join them message generated by effect event This destination is not recognised Try again using a name of a destination listed on your map or at www dayofthefiguri nes co uk you re already at DESTLONGNAM E feeling PLAYERHEALTH PARTNERNICKN AME can t be found anywhere in DESTSHORTNA ME 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 the player you are to find looking for can t be another FIND NO SUCH found Check that PLAYER the name you used recognises is right and try not exist again attempts go find message sent to perform player when you are an action PLAYER CANT when incapacita ted things to do with things not clothes WW a a i _ ll g pr not clothes Blobs DROP_TPOS thing loth PICKUP_TPOS PICKUP_TBOS PICKUP_TPOS
33. able low priority o the mission the player is on if applicable low priority 7 6 3 Aggregation priority in response to player action For update and for waking from rest a where the player is health mission they are on incapacitated player s present what they are holding player s present description thing s present description player s present thing s present 59 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 For say and heard say player s present description thing s present description player s present thing s present health health boundary change mission they are on what they are holding health where the player is For use pick up drop and having a thing used on them For find For go response the action health health boundary change player s present description thing s present description player s present thing s present health where the player is response the action player s present description thing s present des cription player s present health thing s present health health boundary change where the player is health what they are holding response to the action health health boundary change health what they are holding When becoming incapacitated that you ve dropped your thing if applicable player s present description player s present 60 Deliverable 12 5 19 09 2006
34. af Ttt Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming FP6 004457 Work package WP12 Showcase City as Theatre Deliverable D12 5 Delivery of the Second City as Theatre prototype Editors Martin Flintham Steve Benford and Mauricio Capra Authors Chris Greenhalgh Martin Flintham Michael Wright Jonathan Green Keir Smith Adam Drozd Matt Adams Ju Row Farr Nick Tandavanitj Hanna Talbot Irma Lindt Johan Peitz Steffan Bj rk Alain Becam Version 1 0 Release date September 2006 Status public IPerG Deliverable 16 11 2006 Deliverable D12 5 Design Specification and Prototype of the Second a Version of Day of the Figurines Iert Executive Summary This document describes the second major iteration of the design of Day of the Figurines that has been realised in the second phase of the iPerG project in the City as Theatre showcase Day of the Figurines is a long term text messaging game for mobile phones that has been designed by professional artists The game follows a day in the life of an imaginary small town Day of the Figurines takes the form of a massively multiplayer board game but one with which players can interact remotely va their phones A player enters a public venue to choose a plastic figurine that is placed onto a large scale physical game board An hour or so after leaving the venue the player will receive their first text
35. articular this deliverable introduces the following key innovations that have emerged during this second phase Support for scalability through automation of the game rules and message generation and also the use of a simple game grammar Whereas the first version of Day of the Figurines required a substantial amount of operator work to generate and edit messages this second version is highly automated and should scale to supporting many hundreds of simultaneous players The addition of greater structure and content to the game including the use of objects a health system and most importantly missions which combines events dilemmas and objects into more extended narrative structures within the game Support for episodic play combining greater responsiveness with quickly backing off with daily keep alive messages Key to supporting episodic play is a new hub based movement model that enables player s to move more quickly through the virtual town while also enabling them to be allocated small episodes of play encounters events or dilemmas as they go Techniques to limit message flow so as not to flood players and stay within the cost constraints imposed by SMS which affect both players and game operators Flow control mechanisms include the use of silos at destinations to manage the volume of chat and the introduction of message aggregation which involved automatically combining information about several events into a si
36. ation of Day of the Figurines described in this deliverable represents a major reworking of the game both in terms of its content and the technology and processes used to deliver it In particular this deliverable introduces the following key innovations that have emerged during this second phase Support for scalability through automation of the game rules and message generation and also the use of a simple game grammar Whereas the first version of Day of the Figurines required a substantial amount of operator work to generate and edit messages this second version is highly automated and should scale to supporting many hundreds of simultaneous players The addition of greater structure and content to the game including the use of objects a health System and most importantly missions which combines events dilemmas and objects into more extended narrative structures within the game Support for episodic play combining greater responsiveness with quickly backing off with daily keep alive messages Key to supporting episodic play is a new hub based movement model that enables player s to move more quickly through the virtual town while also enabling them to be allocated small episodes of play encounters events or dilemmas as they go Techniques to limit message flow so as not to flood players and stay within the cost constraints imposed by SMS which affect both players and game operators Flow control mechanisms include the
37. ation such as hints and tips instructions and a historical view of a player s movements to be displayed The player website is backed by a controller and JSPs that give it access to the main Equip dataspace allowing it to pull out historical and current player information once a player has logged in D r Of Thee Pur res Moala Firefoo Be E Ven Go Bons ods Heb qa Cu g Ka 9 herp few davotther gurnec co ui About Dey Of The Figurines 02 27pm Buy Of The Figurines 5 pon bosd pane ped sec society The gare is se in 6 Tichoned town Theft is Siered der end underpinned wil steady decoy iie tor 24 Moye hegrnng tom Turt w 20 Septerber Each dey represents mm hour nthe ite oa smal Engish town that sits trom Te eurdans 15 the ontaclsric Somn ois pwy a gg v the Leoamo that yoro Fomdbhy wrong ns Midte Enter troops rasie the town tron the west How you repond to ese overts and to ech dir Crosses and nisiainz a conmundr dag the courses of the 24 murs ct the tran From the Gacurraiter to Dar Bam Fe Card 10 ihe Fl Research malate up to 1000 pavare roan the sracte deining youreeives through your intersetione The cerbregiece of tie gare i6 a model toan housed in the foyer of HALL in Berlin Each of the 1 009 payers je represented by o pg plasto figurine which is moved by hid every hour for the duration of the ome How Can I Play gt To ply Dart ace inetied to creste Saur rye 1o ejer the The Rules gt
38. back to previous batch 1 50 O mark batch as done move on to next batch 101 151 board update done Figure 8 Augmentation Control The game board software connects to the main game web application using the IPerG positioning service Whenever a player moves within the game the core game engine updates the instance of the positioning service with information about where they moved from and to which can then be queried by the board software when the board is updated The spectator interface is a screen embedded into the side of the game board It runs a Flash movie that displays the most recent messages that have been sent and received by players The Flash movie polls for new messages by making an HTTP request to a custom controller in the main game web application 21 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 RECENT MESSAGES Constance 2006 10 06 16 04 O223pm the fence is high A passing workman gazes up at that high fence Gor bitmey guner you ain t gatting ower that witout a shep ladder so you bert Patty Para 2006 10 06 16 00 02 Z r Wis key word isnt recognised The main key words are GO SAY PICKUP DROP USE FIND amp UPDATE Your text must begin with a key word Constance 2006 10 06 16 91 O223pm the fence is high A passing workman gazes up at mai high fence Gar bliney guunor you aint getting ower that without a step ladder 9 you Iert Patty Para 2006 10 06 16 00 02 29pm Wig key word ient recognise
39. ckName Player thing_recipient nickName passText parameter List of things in current destination inside outside If no things then NO THINGS PRESENT Else if recently recieved description There is are here things are grouped by kind a Thing longName a couple of a few many comma separated with and for last clause There is are here things are grouped by kind a Thing description a couple of a few many comma separated with and for last clause There is nothing here List of other active players in current silo If no other players then NO PLAYERS PRESENT Else is are here comma separated and and for last clause Player nickName Player description unless a player is incapacitated in which case who is PLAYERHEALTH player instead of Player description In the case that only one player is listed cf above except text is is nearest not is here There is no one here constrained to maximise relevant information in full message Preferentiall y select 1 mission player in need 2 incapacitate d friends 3 other incapacitate d players 4 best 55 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 LIST THINGS bing special case If holding nothing then Else if recently HELD held worn recieved description You are wearing carrying possibly Thing longName Else You ar
40. ckup an absent Thing ERROR you take off the THINGSHORTNA ME and place it on the ground ACTIONINGPLAY ER takes off THINGLONGNAM E and places it on the ground there is MESSAGETEXT nearby to pickup You re at DESTSHORTNA ME LIST THINGS no there is near you to pick up You re at DESTSHORTNA ME LIST THINGS there is no MESSAGETEXT nearby to pickup You re at DESTSHORTNA ME LIST THINGS nothing there is nothing near you to pick up You re at DESTSHORTNA ME LIST THINGS have use you don t anything to LIST THINGS you don t have anything you can drop LIST THINGS 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 attempts to perform an action when incapacita attempts to clothes attempts pick up PICKUP TPOFH DROP TPOFC Default pickup failure message due to poor health sent to actioning player incap clothes drop failure message due to poor health sent to Deliverable 12 5 you do not have the strength to pick up THINGSHORTNA ME you do not have the strength to move let alone undress actioning player things to do X with Observer PARTNERNICKN PLAYER HEAR player hears a AME said D SAY say message l SMESSAGETEXT things to do X with info updat e status player Message built from available applicable information according to the following priority incorporating player knowledge G SSES DESTINATION_ has requested
41. cognised UP USE DROP INFO and FIND Go to www dayofthefiguri nes co uk to learn more things to do with movement leaves ajljobserver not hub hub leaves W LEAVE FRO destinatio shouldn t be observed M DESTINATIO witnesses MENSIS n silo anyway N partner leaving M arrived arriving arrives at observer non hub destination W ARRIVE AT witnesses Se Gee ae destinatio DESTINATION partner or effect NATION destination C player in need LIST PLAYERS land or key LIST THINGS things player arrive in hub only player i player in silo not hub in the hub for e re on your way arrival dilemma or a single player mission i e no SI SUPER no action Bre experience first i e i HUBDESCRIPTIO player arrival at non hub you ve arrived at Inadequate destination during DESTSHORTNA e g need to destination player arriving ME know about description not find ARRIVE DESTI at a non hub DESTLONGDES mission person for chat hub N departure mission or arrives in the 42 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 is moved outside in side destinatio n by an destinatio n attempts to go to the same destinatio cannot here dead lleft or E observer player dilemma in hub have received ARRIVE_HUB_SOLO hub else arrive in someone present i e chat other player is not resting in the same destination HUB_MEETING ARRIVE_HUB_M EETING FOUND_PLAYE R GO
42. coming SMS message is used to identify the player who sent it Next the message is parsed to identify the command that the player wishes to perform by searching for a Command Alias that represents a command verb such as GO FIND or USE within the message If none are found immediately then the message is parsed a word at a time attempting to match the most likely Command Alias to the string using an edit distance function within a certain threshold so as to overcome possible typos that have not been predicted in advance Based on the command verb that has been identified the message is then parsed a second time using a similar mechanism to identify the relevant arguments of the message However the current context of the player and the command that they have specified are used to direct the parsing of unknown arguments for example only matching against Things in the player s current location in the game when trying to pick something up or only matching known Destinations when trying to go somewhere This mechanism means that when Player Action generated from a parsed message is sent to the core game engine component no further parsing is required as the information in the object has already been constructed within the context of the game The core game engine component is driven by incoming Player Action events received from the Equip2 data space notification mechanism and by regular time events received from the Quartz scheduler It outputs
43. current time for the hub and which has not been given to this player before could split here for hub arrival mission like nothing happens but are allocated mission hub depart destination arrival mission like nothing happens but will be allocated mission on arrival at final destination Note mission cannot be chosen yet because player may use go in the hub to go somewhere else if no relevant dilemma mission available for this player then falls back to nothing happens 80 multiplayer meeting i e first look for a non full non empty two player silo don t worry about friends there cannot be more one at a time and o if found place player in it and set chat timeouts for both players o else choose a new empty two player silo fix description allocate player to it set arrive wait for meeting timeout Hub timer set according to experience type When expired player progresses to final destination Timer changed if incase of saying in multiplayer meeting extended see notes afterresponding to dilemma reset to short wait Special cases dilemma expires without responding imposes default response and resets hub exit timer as per player response to dilemma short wait then go to final destination player in two player hub whose partner leaves due to go or their timer expiring more on to final destination immediately irrespective of own timer Go to the same destination when in a non hub destina
44. d The mais ey words are GO SAY PICKUP DROP USE FIND amp UPDATE Your text must begin with key ward Constance 20065 10 06 16 845 02 28pm the fence is high A passing workmen gazes up et that high tence Gor bliney quunor you sint getting over that wiPiout a step tedder eo you Iert Patty Pars 20606 1046 W00 022000 key word i recogn s py p Figure 9 Spectator Interface 22 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 APPENDIX 7 1 Game Model Specification 7 1 1 Destinations amp Silos Destinations There are 49 normal destinations plus Hub offboard Each destination is subdivided into any number of Silos Every player in a destination is in exactly one silo of that destination Each silo has a nominal maximum capacity but this may be exceeded e g find or carry Each destination may be divided into an inside and an outside but some destinations will only have an outside even if it is inside So each silo is either inside or outside but not both athing may be inside or outside but not both access to the inside may be restricted e g missions see later open closed time notdestination capacity this has been removed Silos Silos are dynamically generated for destinations if required Each destination has a preferred silo size Currently each destination has a silo template is this just an implementation detail Game state Silo Desti
45. d it already 7 1 4 Dilemma Game state Each authored dilemma is characterised by dilemma allocation effect number of response options o each of which is an effect see Thing use above 25 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 identity of default response option dilemma timeout is global Deliverable 12 5 list of event scopes defining time s and destination s when where dilemma can be allocated Each dilemma as allocated to a single player is characterised by player authored dilemma responded flag identity of response if responded dilemma timeout if not yet responded Dilemma allocation Caused by entering or if not on a mission leaving the hub see Player movement Also caused as a custom result of some action s in a mission see Mission 7 1 5 Missions Game state An authored mission is characterised by d name time destination scope list of event scopes min previous mission count requires player in need flag allocation effects o to player o to player in need if present o tobystander s optional max timeout for whole mission gt failure mission description text set is mission specific user action over rides each characterised by o trigger player action event mask player picking up a specific thing class usinga specific thing class arriving at a specific destination or player in need action picking up a
46. e with wearing carrying Thing description description according to Thing type clothes not as in the message length permits context of player message history PARTNERHEAL partner special case Selection of health description according to health partner health see below 4 ms PLAYERHEALT player s special case Selection of health description according to H health player health see below PARTNERHESH PARTNER special case he or she according to partner gender E HE or SHE PARTNERHISH partner his special case or hers men Question question1 questionText new ANSWER2 the answer class Question question2 questionText new to question 2 m E Gei his her according to partner gender ANSWER1 the answer to question 1 Question ANSWER3 the answer class question3 questionText to question 3 the answer class Question question4 questionText ne to question 4 No longer used PLAYERFULLNAME PARTNERFULLNAME THINGSHORTNAME PLAYERHESHE PLAYERHISHERS ANSWER4 m JI 7 5 2 Notes message length variants The variable length versions are likely to disappear as message elements included in message specifications a single smart message element may be included to hint at including that kind of information e g things the following have been replaced with smart LIST_THINGS o LISTTHINGSWITHDESCRIPTION o LISTTHINGS o LISTONETHINGWITHDESCRIPTION o
47. e first prototype had a certain weighting towards transactional content in messages e g Player A arrives Player B leaves rather than more interesting descriptions For the new version some of these kinds of messages have been removed altogether and in other cases space at the end of messages is used to add more descriptive content Message pacing and aggregation is discussed in more detail in the next section and a list of game events and whether they create instant or aggregated message content can be 4 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 The Hub found in the appendix The first prototype was based around a Cartesian space with players moving a number of squares across the board each hour to move between destinations This meant that there were long periods of time while a player was travelling where even if they wished to play there was little content and few other players with which to interact On the assumption that a player who had just sent a movement message to the game wanted to play this movement model was discarded in order to better offer engaging content in response This second prototype has therefore moved to a room model similar to older text adventure games where each destination is only ever two moves away from any other This model operates by introducing the Hub an in between place that represents a player being in transit between destinations and allocates interesting content to players w
48. e identification of a player in need if required by mission A player figurine is in one of the following major states o new in process of registration o playing resting or non playing time e active 2T 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 o left town o dead a playing player is always in exactly one silo of one destination dead and left town players are moved to their own silo in the destination off board hasadescription o players provided description o current description combining Original description which may be replaced during the game by missions dilemmas and local events may be constructed from history of events replace list of additional appended description fragments which may be added to during the game due to missions dilemmas and local events append has a health level 0 if dead o dead 0 o incapacitated 1 20 cannot move find carry people or things other than clothes or use can talk o mobile 21 100 may be carrying at most one thing or player do we have to have carrying players can it be handled as a special case in missions ask Blast Theory how sad they will be if this is not present has a gender used in message stuff only has a mobile phone number used for sending receiving messages a list of friends other players quantified by number of meetings and number of messages said to and heard from used in Silo all
49. e many THINGLONGNAMEPLURAL e some are some many THINGSHORTNAMEPLURAL or are some many THINGLONGNAMEPLURAL e many are many THINGSHORTNAMEPLURAL or ae many THINGLONGNAMEPLURAL o definite article never used 57 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Health descriptions Currently cock of the walk banging hotto trot very fine indeed averagely fine feeling peaky out of sorts poorly pretty ill very unwell maximum sick about to pass out unable to move fading fast very fucked dead For use in phrases who is XX you are XX he she is XX Text to be stored in MessageElements where the title is built from form HEALTH bottom of health range percent TO top of health range percent e g HEALTH 20 TO 30 7 6 DOTF Berlin Message Aggregation and Pacing 7 6 1 Sending a Message The system will send a message to a player d entries are those that will include aggregated content ifthe player is active o in response to a player message that is correctly formed and successful say go update pick up use drop find leave town help after a generic time out around 5 to 7 minute e g go locarno update say How did you guys get here that is correctly formed but unsuccessful or is incorrectly formed after an error time out around 3 to 5 minute eg jkdfn which causes
50. ects of each content type together with XML serialisation for up and downloading enabling backup and transferral a configured view that displays the same web forms but with friendly names and hiding underlying system aspects of the types that do not require authoring and a high level authoring applet that displays all currently authored content by space and time These interfaces are integrated within the Day of the Figurines web application In practice the web application is deployed twice to the production webserver One instance runs the game with a static content set while the second is used by the authors to add update and review content When this content has been tested and is deemed to be complete it is transferred to the live game instance by dumping as XML from the authoring instance and uploading to the live ins tance The interfaces are backed by a set of generic Spring controllers which provide access to the Equip dataspace for the creation and manipulation of Equip objects The authoring applet is backed by a custom controller also provides access to the datas pace This system has three major advantages to offline authoring Firstly it allows multiple authors to work on the same set of content on the authoring server without affecting the live game and removing the need to merge content that may have been authored against an older snapshot A set of sanity checking scripts may be used to ensure that the content does not con
51. efully it won t matter see next point But in general players may be registered while the game is not active In this case the player s state on registration remains new until the game is activated A player who is added when the game is active may be immediately made active resting as appropriate The game will never be activated until the start of the event When the game is opened resting active states are updated for current physical world time amessageis sent to each active player game opens event new players are made active resting as appropriate get welcome to dof message rather than game opened message event processing resumes the game clock is started Closing the game When the game is closed the game clock is stopped event processing stops flush process events that are now released in flight a message issent to each active player game closed event 7 2 Game Events Specification 7 2 1 Introduction Each thing that happens within the core game is represented by one or more game events which may be used by the game engine itself e g to avoid duplicate local event allocation bythe message generation system 36 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 by the orchestration interface to get a detailed view of player activity by the player web interface to construct a history of player activity in the game Major groups of game events are
52. emmas and Missions and http holt mrl nott ac uk test dof2 author index htm 13 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Content Usage Content Helpers Content Breakdown Things Each of these pieces of content has an associated Scope and the Scope defines when and where the parent should be active within the game A number of Scopes may be allocated to one particular content object allowing for example a Local Event to span multiple time frames or Destinations Each Scope is associated with one other object in a one to one relationship for database query efficiency as opposed to a one to many relationship of the parent object to multiple Scopes In a similar fashion multiple Mission Criteria objects are associated with each Mission The third group consists of message related content and includes Command Aliases which similar to Scopes provide a mapping from text strings to specified game state objects and Message Elements and Message Specifications for the construction of outgoing messages Message Elements and Specifications are static in that each serves a predetermined purpose within the game engine To facilitate this a set of template Elements and Specifications are initially uploaded to the dataspace where they can then be edited by the authors using the interfaces provided When the main Day of the Figurines web application is loaded portions of the authored content is loaded and cached in memory to red
53. en arrested Find a drum kit and get to the Locarno by 11pm to take his place The player now has two game hours to complete the mission If the player arrives at the Locarno while carrying the Thing drumkit within the allotted time they receive the text you made it Troll skal atter herske Back stage the vocalist glowers at you From now you Juergen He pokes your head with the sign of the goat Go The player is moved outside the Locarno which is described as being a backstage VIP area at this time When the Mission expires if the player is outside the Locarno with the drumkit they must have completed the above Criteria and receive the following message which completes the Mission you and your new long haired chums sweep victoriously onto the stage You all thrash that kit like nordic lords while androgynous goths gaze in awe However if the Mission expires and the player is not waiting backstage at the Locarno they receive the following horned cloven disaster You re too late 6 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Satan s Bubbly Fjord have already found a drummer There s still time to enjoy the gig though The Mission has been failed Missions and Mission Criteria are specified in detail in the appendix 7 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 3 GAME REALISATION Features Day of the Figurines Game Design Introduction This section describes how the game design s
54. erable pres ent detailed specifications of key aspects of the second version of Day of the Figurines covering Game model specification Events specification Message specifications linked to game events Authored text reference Message elements Aggregation and pacing S et AMO a ag E soi 2 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 2 Game DESIGN OVERVIEW Features Research Goals Game Setting Games Area Genre Target Group Story Line and Game Play Day of the Figurines Game Design The overall research goal for this second iteration of Day of the Figurines is to explore the issues involved in designing and deploying an artist led pervasive game bas ed on SMS text messaging for mobile phones This includes developing and evaluating new techniques to support the creation of long term pervasive games based on SMS that can be gracefully interwoven with the patterns of daily life This overall goal breaks down into the following more specific sub goals Game siructure and content extending the previous game structure and content with new mechanism to give players a greater sense of overall purpose within the game Scaling and automation to introduce new structures and processes that will enable the game to scale from of the order of 100 players from the first version to many hundreds of players Episodic play to support highly episodic patterns of individual play a tendency that we saw in the fi
55. ere before E g health 50 cannot increase by more than 25 health 80 cannot increase by more than 10 100 80 2 health 90 cannot increase by more than 5 100 90 2 If a player s health becomes zero or less capped to zero they die their state becomes dead not playing player removed from silo amp destination ends up in off the board if player is player in need on any mission s then check for and process custom mission actions effects player death event Operator notified to create a single custom death message bystander observe death event s ifcarrying clothes the thing s destroyed action is performed remove or respawn any outstanding timers are cancelled hub dilemma If a player is player in need on any mission s and their health increases then check for custom actions on those missions player recovery NB be careful of race condition with player on mission actually having helped them by using the right thing on them Dilemmas allocation of time out or other default trigger See Dilemmas above Local events occurrence See Local events above Missions See missions above 7 1 7 Game Lifecycle Game time Game time is essentially independent from physical world time While the game is active game time progressive at a define rate with respect to physical world time typically 10 hours physical world 1 hour game time Game time must not be moved backwards Game activity W
56. ext 1 hour see Resting above update game activity Commands mu d T LEE me EE oe Movement Go Find Cannot move if incapacitated except if a player is incapacitated while in the hub they will still be moved on their final destination when their hub timer expires If attempted results in failure to move game event Go to another destination when in a non hub destination If waiting for a dilemma response then apply default response Move immediately to the hub generate leave event Experience the fun allocation process all numbers adjustable 20 single player 30 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 o 2096 nothing happens i e new empty capacity 1 silo with new random hub description in current scope short timeout arrive event o 8076 50 allocated a dilemma which is in scope for current time for the hub and which has not been given to this player before could split here for hubarrival dilemma i e new empty capacity 1 silo with new random hub description long default dilemma response timeout see below ifplayeris NOT on a mission then hub depart destination arrival dilemma i e hub experience is like nothing happens but arrival at destination triggers dilemma Note dilemma cannot be chosen yet because player may use go in the hub to go somewhere else 50 if not already on a mission allocated a mission at random which is in scope for
57. external SMS provider and therefore a real phone A simulation may consist of a hand crafted message or a bulk upload of a large number of messages that are handled over a period of time 10 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 SMS handling and parsing The SMS parsing component attempts to map an incoming SMS message from a player onto a known game action with a relevant in game context before this is passed to the core game engine that then acts upon it To identify the action that a player is attempting to perform the component uses a combination of direct string matching and edit distance calculations in order to attempt to guess what a player has specified in the case that it is unrecognised To interact with and modify the game state a player specifies a command with optionally a number of arguments Depending on the command the argument may be a Destination they wish to go to a Thing they wish to pick up use or drop or a Player they wish to find Each command and each instance of these game objects has one or more Command Alias objects associated with it each of which contains a string that can be used to identify a reference to the game object within the SMS message An object may have more than one Command Alias associated with it and these are authored in such a way as to attempt to pre empt expected typographical errors when entering a command using a phone keypad The originating phone number of each in
58. f 7 3 2 Notes Multiple shortening length message specifications have been replaced by a smart aggregation system Where potential elements are prioritised by the authors and subsequently included where appropriate according to mission and history and the space available 7 4 Authored Text Reference 7 4 1 Introduction This document attempts to pull together and index all possible sources of text that appear in messages sent by the DOTF system which in some sense are therefore authored This includes properties of database classes included via message elements message specifications from o database MessageSpecifications o effects in thing use local events dilemmas and missions other builtin text o health descriptions in source code o custom coded message element text fragments in source code 7 4 2 Authored class properties Player nickName used in PLAYERNICKNAME PARTNERNICKNAME etc descriptionText used in PARTNERDESCRIPTION etc which is intended to be used in context You are X He she is X answers to player s questions not used Destination shortName used in DESTSHORTNAME etc Useful e g in You are at X Going to X longName used in DESTLONGNAME etc Non hub destinations will have a single current destination description current inside outside closed descriptions held by a single destination description From this the description is determined and might be
59. here do you want E 1 1 1 1 see observer cases for observed event author a local event if a message is required see player is given a local event event game every if message players Text for opens active flag mangling from event 49 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 did Requires specific operator construction message players flag playing player END GAME pa Day game end vi WW sent at end of day END GAME DA Day game end Y2 sent at end of E day END GAME DA P8Y game end YN K sent at end of 7 day END GAME pa Day game end Y 24 sent at end of day Day game end sent at end of day Day game end sent at end of day Day game end sent at end of day 50 Text for mangling for event Requires specific operator construction the hour is over for PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuff the hour is over for PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuff the hour is over for PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuff the hour is over for PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuff the hour is begun for PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuff the hour is begun for PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuff the hour is begun for PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuff 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 the hour is begun Day game end for SIAHI GAMES sent at end of PLAYERNICKNA ME Some things a stuf
60. hile the game is not active no game actions or events are processed and no game timers make progress Relation to Incoming Message Handling Some message handling can occur when the game is not active initial processing of leave town response to first incoming message from a player after game closes with game closed message messages when the game is closed are logged but not passed to the game engine for processing 35 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Note if the game engine crashes i e message delivery to the game engine fails then the gateway attempts to reliably deliver these messages at the first opportunity while attempting to attract the attention of an operator The incoming gateway should normally be opened after the game is made active and closed before the game is made inactive Relation to Outgoing Message Gateway The outgoing gateway should normally be enabled before the game is made active and disabled after the game is made inactive to allow events in progress at game close to the processed and corresponding messages generated and despatched Opening closing game The game will be opened initial when the event starts It will close finally when the event ends It will be closed temporarily each night at other times if major maintenance work is urgently required e g whole system crash stall Opening the game At the beginning of the event will any players be pre registered Maybe hop
61. ho have just asked to go to another part of the town Each time that a movement command is received the game engine moves the player to the Hub and after a short time onto their desired destination Players entering the Hub are placed in a dynamically allocated Silo Silos are discussed in more detail below A Silo can be thought of as an instance of a particular Destination and a player in a Silo is not aware of other players in different Silos even though they may be at the same Destination Upon entering the Hub the system looks for possible content that can be allocated to the player There are four different types of Hub that a player may be allocated based on weighted random chance Local Event the player receives a one off descriptive event Dilemma the player is given a dilemma which will expire when they leave the Hub Mission the player is allocated a mission that they will retain having left the Hub Chat the player is paired up with another player already in the Hub who has also been allocated Chat to foster interaction and conversation When both players chat the timer that will move the player on is extended to prolong the conversation If one or both players stop chatting they are moved on to their target destinations The allocation weighting of the different types may be manipulated while the system is running allowing the game operators to foster more interaction between players by increasing the chance
62. ide a persistent state The application and this supporting infrastructure are deployed to an instance of Tomcat with supporting MySQL database Day of the Figurines runs on a dedicated webserver where multiple Tomcat instances are accessed through an instance of the Apache webserver software which maps the relevant url paths to the required Tomcat instance The webserver is a duel core machine with 4GB of memory running Redhat Linux and is hosted at Nottingham Figure 5 shows the architecture of the application as it sits within the infrastructure described above in terms of the key components of the game application Core game engine SMS External SMS sender provider receiver Message E renderer SMS Proxy 4 4 Message aggregator Core game application Figure 2 Application Architecture The core of the Day of the Figurines application nsists of five key components Each component communicates with others by adding updating and deleting Equip objects Equip objects are also created and accessed by supporting interfaces such as the Augmented Board and Spectator Client and the Author Operator and Orchestration interfaces described in later sections The SMS sending and receiving component which provides the primary interface for interaction with the game to players is split between two Tomcat instances which communicate via http requests enabling the core game application to be started and stopped wi
63. ilemma Message parsing is described in more detail in the next section game realisation and the specific function of each action is described in detail in the appendix In the first prototype operators performed manual filtering of outgoing messages to avoid swamping a player with potentially duplicated mundane messages Similarly players who were deemed to be inactive were more likely to only receive messages that were deemed to be particularly interesting to them This second prototype continues this themein an automated fashion Message aggregation attempts to digest recent events in order to reduce the number of messages sent by making a distinction between events that warrant an immediate response such as an event that directly affects a player and events that provide more background information such as other players arriving and leaving at a destination For each of the former that generates a message the message aggregation system attempts to ill the remainder of the available message space with text regarding the latter Secondly the message aggregation system now maintains a record of which events a player has been told about and to what extent For example if a player arrives at a destination that they have already visited then they receive a short description that creates room for listing nearby players and objects on the assumption that they will have received a long description the first time they arrived Finally th
64. ilo but same destination active bystanders applied if present H the thing affects user o effect of use on using player using if no one else present or doesn t affect someone else applies to user o effect of use on active bystander applies to any other players present in same silo o optional effect of use on non silo but same destination active bystanders applied if present if destroyed on use then destroyed action performed remove from game or respawn Update Update Like other actions update ends a rest if an update causes a player to become active do they get both the wake up and the update messages No effect on game state Request recorded to trigger update message to player including some of destination player health description carrying same silo players same destination inside outside things current dilemma current mission Leave Leave town 33 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Player never receives any message after this other than confirmation of having left NB may require enforcing in message gate way to avoid race conditions e g if leave message causes player to become active Player is removed from current silo and state becomes left town Other players in silo receive bystander of left town event If player is player in need of any mission s then check for mission actions Rest Rest See Resting above Optional parameter is number of hours to
65. it can include if possible in the message This is achieved by searching through the Game Events that relate to the player and to their current location that are not worthy of an individual message for information that can be included within the message In some cases it is an update of who is currently co located with player if new players have arrived since they last interacted with the system the presence of things dropped by other players or any changes to player s health Specific details regarding pacing and aggregation can be found in the appendix Once the Renderer has a Game Eventthat spawns a message and any other information to try to include in the message it generates the text Each piece of a message has an associated Message Specification which includes all the text for the message or a Message Elementthat is used to fill the message with Player Destination or Thing relevant content The Message Element is a key word that is mapped to specific content in the system In the simplest case a Message Element is a piece of static text whereas in other cases it could map to the player s nickname or listing nearby players or things A Message Element may result in no characters being inserted in the message if there is nothing to list or not enough space to list even one of the things or players present or it may be a rich list of the other co located players including their des cription and what they are holding according to h
66. ived 15 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 5 TECHNOLOGY amp Devices USED Players Operators Displays an interface for adding new players PG Workstation to the game and allowing a player to describe their figurine with operator validation 1 Operators Displays an interface that enables an SG leiere a quad operator to start and stop the game and edd grapnics car send start of day messages Runs the spectator interface for the Augmented Board Runs the Augmented Board software client RugitentediBoatd Spectators Operators Receiving and sending text messages 1 Spectators A display attached to the Augmented Board Spectator Interface that displays incoming and outgoing SMS messages f 1 per Players Sending and receiving SMS messages to Players Commercial external SMS gateway service SMS Gateway forwards messages between the game application and players Players Operators Runs the main game web application Webserver Authors containing the core game engine supports authoring operator and orchestration interfaces and the public website 16 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 6 USER INTERFACES EE Player The mobile phone and in particular SMS provide a narrow channel for relaying game website information between players and the game The Day of the Figurines player website provides an additional resource for players that is not bandwidth limited as SMS allowing additional inform
67. let in order to logically group a number of content objects This functionality is used to filter these groups within the applet view giving the author a clearer view of how the group is spread over time and Destinations A set of automated sanity checking functions are provided to check whether the authored objects are logically correct within the game logic of Day of the Figurines This tool checks all content within the system and displays logical inconsistencies for example Scopes that are not assigned to a parent object or conversely content that does not have a Scope Dilemmas without responses or a default response or text that is more than 160 characters in length As stated previously content that has been authored for the current release of Day of the Figurines can be viewed on the live authoring server website In summary the current content consists of 50 Destinations 228 Destination Descriptions 27 Dilemmas 70 Dilemma Responses 251 Local Events 14 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 78 Message Elements 93 Message Specifications 857 Command Aliases 17 Narrative Arcs 26 Missions 77 Mission Criteria 33 Things 826 Thing Instances 1006 Scopes Online Content A website located at www dayofthefigurines co uk provides information and instructions on how to play the game It also allows registered players to login and see where they are in the town and gives a history of messages that they rece
68. nation inside outside capacity current number of players present description ID short not long Hub silo only Destinations descriptions and open close Each destination each a set of destination descriptions which allow the system to determine at any moment of game time the inside if accessible and outside descriptions Each description comprises text of the outside optional if open and inside optional if closed description earliest use time latest use time open closed flag causes destination to open close as appropriate to be clarified wrt messaging e g short and long forms 23 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Offboard Offboard has silos of size 1 only Otherwise it is a normal destination except that you cannot go to offboard no alias E g find would work but people presumably won t use it The Hub Players visit the hub only when going to some other specified destination The hub contains unbounded number of Silos The hub never opens The hub can have many different descriptions at any moment of game time Therefore each hub silo only has its own current description chosen from those currently valid for the hub when the first player enters it See Player Movement below 7 1 2 Things Game state A particular thing instance seither o being carried by a particular player or o inanon hub destination ins ide or outside choose one only o inahubsilo
69. ngle messages so as to make maximum use of previous SMS bandwidth a technique that we anticipate to be more widely applicable across SMS based pervasive games Digital augmentation and physical redesign of the physical gameboard so as to provide a more compelling spectator interface to the game and also to make its operation more efficient and therefore scalable More sophisticated authoring operation and orchestration interfaces for the game supported by a back end database and webserver for managing the game content A key innovation here is that these interfaces and the supporting database and many java classes required for development are mostly automatically generated from some core Java bean specifications This document describes the second version of Day of the Figurines in a uniform IPerG standardized game design structure explaining the game design game flow game content employed technology user interfaces and the content of the software distribution Each IPerG game is described in this common format Please refer to document D5 3B for a ludological definition of pervasive games and a conceptual framework for understanding and discussing the domain of pervasive gaming Deliverable 12 5 i 16 11 2006 Deliverable D12 5 Design Specification and Prototype of the Second anima Version of Day of the Figurines Pers __ _ __ Purpose of this Document The purpose of this document is to provide a summarized and struc
70. no change replace append text Replace implies text is used in place of player s own description which is intended to be used in context You are X He she is X Bob who is X Mission In addition to mission allocation and stage effects descriptionText which is a self contained sentance INCLUDING full stop e g The policeman is still waiting for you says Keir used maybe in update and or web site to remind player oftheir current mission if any 7 4 3 Message Specifications A message specification DOTF Berlin Message Specification 3 doc is a text template of a complete message for processing by the manglator Message specifications come from The text property of the MessageSpecification instances in the database used when generating messages from game events The messageText property optional of an Effect from a Local event dilemma mission or thing use 7 4 4 Other built in text Health descriptions Currently cock of the walk banging hotto trot very fine indeed averagely fine 52 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 feeling peaky out of sorts poorly pretty ill very unwell maximum sick about to pass out unable to move fading fast very fucked dead For use in phrases who is XX you are XX he she is XX Text to be stored in MessageElements where the title is built from form HEALTH_ b
71. nt decides how when and which of the rendered text pieces are sent to players using several pieces to construct an SMS message attempting to make the best use of the space available while determining which messages can be delayed and which must be sent immediately It adds completed SMS messages to the Equip2 dataspace where they are listen for by the SMS sending and receiving component that pushes them out to players The rationale behind this architecture is to separate he core game state mechanics and game logic from the sending and receiving of SMS messages and other interfaces to the extent that these inputs and outputs of the system are operated independently of the core game As described above the SMS sending and receiving component is split across two Tomcat instances the instance in which the game application is running and a dedicated second instance that acts as a proxy for incoming and outgoing messages The proxy instance communicates with an external commercial SMS delivery provider via http requests in order to send outgoing and receive incoming messages It also communicates with a stub interface within the game application Tomcat instance to send and receive messages to and from the game application The proxy application provides two functions During normal operation it forwards messages to and from the core game application When the game is closed that is out of normal game hours then the proxy application replies to
72. nt silo game time system time text reference to parsed command request am say leaves a destination silo destination silo cause event arrives at a destination silo destination Silo cause event cause type arrive hub arrive destination find effect find another player other player is moved outside inside a inside outside cause event destination by an effect GZ to go to a non pe name GZ destination attempts to go to the same destination attempts to find another other player reason not here dead left resting player but cannot not here dead left or resting attempts to find another pue name player who does not exist attempts to perform an Ee event action when incapacitated cee eee WE VE 5 0 1 other player optional e a thing used on them thing other player uses thing event see uses a thing Sosane O i a thing mo eaeoe 7 1 jJ inside outside nee H attempts to i up an thing name pick up and use flag unknown thing attempts to pick up a thing thing not present attempts to use when not thing optional not generated for failed pick up and use holding nothing there 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 attempts to drop something thing optional when not holding anything attempts to perform an command event action when incapacitated says something EE other active players count i e number of observation of things to do with Tease F SE
73. ocation zeroorone current dilemma which they have yet to respond to alist of dilemmas previously experienced and the player s response to each used to ensure not given duplicate dilemmas and for operator and player web pages zeroorone current mission cannot be on more than one mission at the same time because they would interfere conflict a list of missions previously performed and some information about what happened see missions alistof game events affecting this player e g description modifications alistoflocal events that this player has experienced e g troop envading local event alistof action requests made by the player i e their parsed messages preferred play times resting state true false and if resting time to become active if active in non preferred play time then wall clock time to rest again 1 hour Wall clock play timeout award dilemma on arrival at destination flag award mission on arrival at destination flag hub timeout probably in a system event or similar Non game State A player has other information not used in game play answers to the questionnaire questions not used in game play other than by operators reading them and constructing custom messages saying though operator controlled characters 28 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 associated Person details not used in game play activity level not used in game play
74. of players being allocated a Chat Hub experience Finally the Hub model also reduces the workload of the operators moving figurines on the game board as players no longer need to be moved many times to move between two Destinations A second significant change to the first prototype s Destination model is the introduction of Silos as described above Rather than Destinations having an absolute capacity this second prototype introduces the concept of Silos to enable the notion of quiet and busy Destinations Each Destination now has an unlimited capacity and contains a number of Silos with the capacity of each Silo determined by the Destination When a player arrives at a Destination they are either placed in an existing Silo if there is one with space or a new Silo is created for this player Silos are destroyed when they are empty Players may move between Silos overriding the authored capacity to find other specific players that they may be looking for This new model means that for example the Canal having a Silo capacity of one will always be a quiet place that players may go to if they do not wish to chat to other players and yet many hundreds of players may simultaneously be at the Canal Similarly the Locarno is deemed to be a busy destination and has a Silo capacity of ten meaning that many more players may chat at the Locarno and have the feeling that they are in a busy place without being overwhelmed by receiving
75. ottom of health range percent _TO_ top of health range percent eg HEALTH 20 TO 30 Special case message elements See DOTF Berlin Message Elements 2 doc These include text compiled into the message generation code Currently those which do not simply select one of the above pieces of text LIST THINGS List of things in current destination inside outside e g There is are here LIST PLAYERS List of other active players in current silo as is most relevant to player and fits available space eg IPlayer nickName Player description is are here LIST THING HELD thing held worn e g 7 or You are wearing carrying Thing longName of if there is room You are wearing carrying Thing description PARTNERHESHE he or she according to gender PARTNERHISHER his or her according to gender 7 5 Message Elements 7 5 1 Introduction Each Message is constructed from a Message Specification see Message Specification each message text may combine text with variable elements i e Message Elements Messages are currently constructed in a game context comprising String data text to be mangled dof2 db Player player player receiving the message dof2 db Player partner another significant player e g player being observed player met dof2 db Player thing actioner player using the thing use of thing only dof2 db Player thing recipient player tha
76. ow many characters are still available in the growing SMS To create the final text for the SMS some Message Specifications can be tiled together and some Message Elements will have others nested inside them All Message Specifications and Message Elements can be edited or replaced while the system is running allowing the authors to change the way in which any message the system sends is rendered A detailed specification of Message Specifications and Message Elements can be found in the appendix 12 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 4 GAME CONTENT Features Day of the Figurines Game Content Introduction This section gives an overview of how the content of Day of the Figurines that players experience is authored A full specification of the content types that are authored can be found in the appendix and the content authored for the current game can be found on the live application website Authoring As described in the previous section authored content in Day of the Figurines is made up Process of static Equip objects which the core game engine queries to discover which content is appropriate to the current context of a player as time passes or the player moves through the town A number of interfaces are provided for creating editing and reviewing these Equip objects and are documented in detail in D7 5 Briefly they consist of a generic automatically generated set of web forms that allow modifying all asp
77. pecification of Day of the Figurines as reviewed in the previous section has been realised and implemented A formal description of the game design and accompanying game state can be found in the appendix This section begins by giving an overview of the infrastructure that supports the game which was built as a J2EE web application constantly running on a web server Next it introduces the architecture of the game application itself showing how this was split into a number of logically discrete components Finally each of these components is described in turn Supporting Day of the Figurines is implemented as a Java web application that runs as a servlet within Infrastructure Tomcat The Spring framework allows the application to be split into a number of Java beans controllers and views and also supports communication between the beans Spring controls access to the application by mapping incoming http requests from web interfaces to specific controllers which in turn render data in the application as further web pages In addition to this the Quartz scheduler provides support for regular time based events within the application Figure 4 shows an overview of these supporting infrastructure components Tomcat servlet container Application Spring dispatcher servlets interf interfaces Hibernate Application Logic DE g JDBC connector Database Figure 1 Supporting Infrastructure The application makes extensive use of the Eq
78. phase of the IPerG project In Day of the Figurines players send and receive SMS messages over the course of a month to remotely control their figurines that move across a large physical game board The game follows a day in the life of a virtual town confronting its players with various events dilemmas and missions as they try to help one another This document describes the second iteration of Day of the Figurines in a uniform and standardized IPerG format introducing changes to the game content and technology that are intended to make it more scalable more responsive to the characteristics of SMS and more engaging for both players and spectators Keywords game design pervasive gaming SMS text messaging Version Log Issue Date Rev No Author Change 2006 07 31 1 0 Steve Benford First Version Deliverable 12 5 iii 16 11 2006 Deliverable D12 5 Design Specification and Prototype of the Second a iani Version of Day of the Figurines l PerG 2006 10 06 2 0 Martin Flintham Version for first internal review 2006 10 12 3 0 Anders Ernevi Final Version Deliverable 12 5 iv 16 11 2006 Deliverable D12 5 Design Specification and Prototype of the Second ae Version of Day of the Figurines Iert Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY nce itd ete et mt cd e ttt ee tse ii e EROR l PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT
79. place at these different destinations for example pubs open shops close players discover graffiti and hear news from the pirate radio station a fete takes place at the park there is a total eclipse two Scandinavian death metal bands play at the Locarno nightclub two lovers are found dead at the cemetery and an army of soldiers enters the town Threaded among these events are a series of dilemmas that confront players A scenario is described The player is asked what they want to do in response and an outcome is determined Outcomes nearly always result in the deterioration of their figurine s health and in extreme circumstances they get killed and their game is over Day of the Figurines is designed to be a slow game so as to reflect the nature of SMS messaging The game time takes place over the course of one fictional day However this is mapped onto twenty four days of real time during which the game is played for ten hours each day The first iteration of Day of the Figurines was hosted by the Laban Centre in London and played by 85 players over a month spanning August and September 2005 A detailed evaluation of this first iteration was given in the previous iPerG deliverable D12 4 drawing on a combination of player feedback via questionnaires analysis of system logs and ethnographic observation to unpack key issues concerned with both the player experience and the behind the scenes work that was required to deliver the game The second iter
80. rect sequence that must be performed Further interfaces display help requests from players that require a custom response from the game operators and show statistics on the overall health of the game using automatically populated tables and graphs These also provide access to more detailed views on individual players and the delivery status of outgoing messages 18 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Day OF The Pyare Cre Vaur Pune Maris Pesos Create Your Figurine Figurine Details 7a bag you need to Zero pr from ite fabis De mate remm A Barba ends Te quens Fatze ard ef an optato to itat yius ub Rene get e name o our Van ne 17 tee Mae rame Of Les irish a Ieren lach Yon f hitos G2 etd und o Heer we fas westy 03 Mare zx mcr fwy wel raa vtt OA Phas fut direti feature 4 Horn wadi they the to be reserba Your Personal Details frat Mere Figure 5 Adding a Player De ret rd ae ent Pola Areta sa Uu sS x o icr pe voc rd exo exc uh Ko oncle or vedo erc hon DOTF Berlin er Sey Orchestration ze In SIMEN L res fii Betz Seay Kretan M51 Rame Star THE Terry Da ddr Tery Dodde 0944781712624 91702301462 EEEFEEEETET 5453 supemam t Ouse 2861501922 Figure 6 Player Details Below Message Statistics je send and received last 20 d Thu Sep 07 01 00 00 BST 2906 Fri Oct 06 1646 96 BST 2006 mj Serio piyer 1 Received Yom player ereevves 9 WW 12 19 14
81. rst Day of the Figurines Message flow to manage the flow of messages to players responding quickly when appropriate but without flooding them Spectator Interface to provide a compelling spectator interface that introduces players to the game and that situates it within the specific physical venue where it is staged Day of the Figurines is placed in an artistic venue most likely associated with a new media arts festival This must be indoors where the physical game board will be assembled Players and the general public are invited to observe and join the game Operators are available to clear up any doubt give more information and enter players into the game After the player fills the form to join the game he she receives a short manual with the game description Players are also invited to visit the Day of the Figurines web site Any place where computers and the table could be placed indoors Day of the Figurines is a long term pervasive game for mobile phones thatis intended to be interwoven with patterns of daily life Players only need visit the venue just once to join the game The game issubsequently played on their mobile phones through text messages Day of the Figurines is aimed at the broad audience for new media art works who are generally anticipated to be a reasonably tech savvy and also to have a well developed cultural and critical perspective on interactive art and games Day of the Figurines is based on
82. s PC Workstation with quad head graphics card Augmented Poar ANNE Spectator Interface Mobile Phone SMS Gateway dcorum 16 6 USER pil lecce M 17 Player WEE ere est Operat r Interfaces oot ee ee ees Teen Game board interface Inti ine 7 APPENDIX 7al GAME MODEL SPECIFICATION EEN 7 1 1 Destinations amp Silos VENAE CQ I E Q Deliverable 12 5 v 16 11 2006 Deliverable D12 5 Design Specification and Prototype of the Second ae Version of Day of the Figurines PerG 7 PEE ECUNC PCIE 25 7 1 4 Dilemma 7 1 5 Miseione 7 1 6 Player ee 7 1 7 Game Lifecycle 7 2 GAME EVENTS SPECIFICATION 7 2 1 Introduction 72 2 Things lo do WI RE 7 2 3 Other system related events ee 7 2 4 Authoring related events 7 2 5 e 7 3 DOTF BERLIN MESSAGE SPECIFICATIONS LINKED TO GAME EVENTS 7 3 1 Jotroduceton eee eese sesenta etna tnn ntn nnne nnn 7 0 2 NOlE Sieisen 7 4 AUTHORED TEXT REFERENCE 7 4 1 Introduction 7 4 2 Authored class properties 7 4 3 Message Specifications SEENEN EENEG 7 5 MESSAGE ELEMENTS EMEN 7 5 1 Introduction 7 5 2 o CRE
83. sending and receiving SMS messages where players interact with the game through their mobile phones The goal of the game is to help other players To play visitors enter to a public space where they find a large scale model of an imaginary town The visitors are invited to choose a figurine They give to the figurine a name and answer basic questions about him or her This information is input in a data base and the figurine starts its journey at the edge of the town Players also have a web interface www dayofthefigurines co uk Once a player has been registered in the game and has chosen their figurine they receive their first message from the game asking them where they would like to go Through keyword commands players can indicate new directions for the figurines chat with other players use objects or perhaps be involved in dilemmas events and missions The complete specification of the game and its associated game mechanics is given in the appendix and the implementation of this can be viewed in the accompanying source code The remainder of this section will briefly highlight notable changes from the first prototype which has been described and evaluated in D12 2 and D12 3 namely the introduction of automated message parsing message pacing and aggregation the Hub movement model 3 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Keywords and Automated Parsing Message Pacing and Aggregation Silos Things and Missions
84. t thing is used on if applicable to thing use of thing only dof2 db Destination currrent destination current destination of player dof2 db Destionation current silo current silo of player e g used in hub inside outside text dof2 db Destination future destination final destination of player if in the hub dof2 db Thing thing thing if pick drop or use 53 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 String passText uninterpreted text to include e g body of say or name actually given for presumed destination or thing Barcelona Message Elements class description introspectio n special case PLAYERNICKN a player s class Player player nickName AME nick name DESTSHORTNA a player s class Destination current destination shortName current destination short name DESTLONGNA a player s class Destination current destination longName ME current destination long name DESTSHORTDE short special case Destination SC description current destination shortDesriptionInsideText of a player s or current current destination shortDescriptionOutsideTe destination xt according to player inside outside lf undefined then long description could look up from Destination Description using current destination insideDescriptionlD outsid eDescriptionID HUBDESCRIPTI description class Silo current silo descriptionText or look up ON of a hub will from current silo description
85. tain mistakes Secondly it allows a series of XML snapshots of the content to be created and saved meaning that if at any time content needs to be rolled back to a known good version it can be re uploaded Finally the generic nature of the web forms mean that if for some reason the java types need to be changed the authoring interfaces will automatically reflect these changes Content Authored content within Day of the Figurines can be split into three logical groups This Requirements content is static in that it is only queried by the core game engine in order to update the transient state of the game rather than being modified by he game engine as events occur The first group consists of static content that must be authored first so as to provide a base upon which other content is authored At present this consists of Destinations which are created as Equip objects within the database with the intention that future content can be tied to a specific Destination and time although time is obviously a more abstract representation The second group consists of content that is tied to a destination or group of destinations and a particular time or period of time This information is used by the core game engine to determine when a particular piece of content should be triggered and this content generally affects the state of the game or players This content consists of Destination Descriptions which may change over time Local Events Dil
86. thout losing incoming SMS messages 5 http www hibernate org 9 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 SMS sending and receiving The SMS parsing component listens for new SMS messages received from the first component and parses them into Player Action objects within the context of the game state for example describing a destination that a player wishes to go to or a Thing with which they wish to interact These objects are added to the Equip2 dataspace The core game engine component listens for Player Action objects which it uses to modify the state of the game for example by triggering a player s movement between destinations and handling the resulting encounters with other players and other content within the system Changes in game state are also triggered by time using the quartz scheduler All changes in a players state and in other elements of the overall game state for example the creation or destruction of silos or the changing of destination descriptions result in the creation of Game Event objects which analogous with Player Actions contain information about the change in state that has just occurred These objects are added to the Equip2 dataspace The Message Renderer component listens for particular Game Event objects as they are published in the Equip2 dataspace and renders each one as a piece of readable text which will form part of an SMS message sent to a player The Message Aggregation compone
87. tion If player is outside and destination is open then do normal arrival inside process Else if player is already inside or destination is closed then already there non event Go when in the hub If currently awaiting dilemma response then first process default dilemma outcome Move immediately to destination see below Note if in multiplayer chatthen other player also moved on see above Arriving at a non hub destination 31 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Caused by hub timeout or go when in the hub If player is on a mission with a player in need and player in need is in this destination outside or inside if open than place player in that Silo Otherwise if destination is open then will be placed inside else outside do silo allocation for appropriate silos only inside or outside allocate to the most fun non full silo i e find all non full silos o ifthere are none then create find a new empty silo and allocate player o if one then allocate player to it o if more than one then select using fun test i e we propose weighted sum of present friend s meetings and messages more complicated things could go here why don t Blast Theory write some Generates arrival game event s If player is on a mission then check for a custom arrival message event thing and use if present Complete mission if appropriate Check for local event and process if in scope If flagged to allocate mission
88. tured presentation of the City as Theatre phase two showcase prototype Day of the Figurines version 2 In addition this document should provide a pervasive game design example and is intended to foster pervasive gaming design ideas and realizations in Europe Target Audience This document is intended as a public document to all interested parties within the European game designer community and is intended to foster pervasive gaming development within the European Community Deliverable 12 5 ii 16 11 2006 Deliverable D12 5 Design Specification and Prototype of the Second ae Version of Day of the Figurines Weer ss Deliverable Identification Sheet IST Project No FP6 004457 Acronym IPerG Full title Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming Project URL http www pervasive gaming org EU Project Officer Albert GAUTHIER Deliverable D12 5 Delivery of the second City as Theatre prototype Work package WP12 City as Theatre Date of delivery Contractual M24 Actual M24 Status version 1 0 final Nature Prototype Report Dissemination Dissemination Level Public Consortium Authors Partner University of Nottingham Blast Theory FIT Interactive Institute Responsible Author Steve Benford Email sdb cs nott ac uk Partner Nottingham Phone 44 1159514203 Abstract This document describes the game Day of the for Figurines version 2 alarge scale long term dissemination text messaging game realized in the second
89. uce the number of database queries that occur on each time or action trigger and thus increase efficiency This includes as much of the static content as possible for example Command Alias and Mission Critera objects The code that handles this function also registers listeners that listen for changes of the content within the Equip dataspace and modify the memory cache accordingly so that the System does not need to be restarted to modify content With this in mind this system allows authors to respond to small errors in the content for example typos or to turn off content by removing Scopes while the game is running in response to any problems that may occur Finally at load time the game engine generates more transient game state objects based upon the static authored content in the dataspace These include the Thing Instance objects that similar to Scopes define which Player or Destination is currently holding a Thing Based on the spawning rules in the static Thing class the game engine may create new Thing Instances in Destinations if the system is being run for the first time A number of supporting helper functions are provided to aid the author in creating large amounts of content Each piece of static content may be associated with a Narrative Arc which again is a unique object within the Equip dataspace These objects are not used by the core game engine for running Day of the Figurines but they are used by the authoring app
90. uip2 data sharing middleware platform Equip2 provides a shared dataspace that distributes normal Java objects by providing synchronous databasedike operations such as adding matching updating and removing and also asynchronous change notifications with optional template based filtering and matching 1 http tomcat apache org http www springframework org 3 http www opensymphony com quartz For more information about Equip2 please contact cmg cs nott ac uk 8 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 Application Architecture Equip2 supports a number of different data space implementations with a common interface The implementation used for Day of the Figurines is backed by Hibernate an open source java object to relational database mapping system This allows java objects to be persistently stored by Equip2 in a database such as MySQL as used in conjunction with Tomcat in Day of the Figurines while still providing the dataspace access operations described above Using this system Java beans are defined in a simple XML format to hold the application s state and therefore the state of the game These XML definitions are then parsed using XSLT in order to generate the actual Java beans Equip2 helper classes and the Hibernate mapping files that are used to persistently store the beans in the underlying database These beans can then be used in conjunction with Equip2 operations throughout the application to prov
91. up another then the first is dropped 32 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 If a player asks to use a particular thing that is in their destination but they are not carrying then they first pick it up Pick up must always specify thing If player is on a mission then check for custom effects Drop does not specify thing only one held Any additional text would have been ignored i e drop tissues is just treated as drop even if player is not holding tissues Use with no thing implies use the thing currently carried use with a specific thing implies a if that thing is held then use that b else try to pick up named thing and then use it see above They will be left holding the thing used or nothing if it was destroyed If a thing is used ifthe player is on a mission then check for custom effects otherwise ifthe thing affects someone else type other and o no one else active is present in current silo then effect on user is effect of use on using player using if no one else present or doesn t affect someone else o atleast one other active person is present in current silo one other active player is chosen at random as the subject and effect of use on using player when someone else present applies to user effect of use of subject applies to subject effect of use on active bystander applies to any other players present in same silo g optional dfect of use on non s
92. ut this should be OK if preferred play slots are large compared to chat timeouts please A player starts resting when they reach the end of one of their preferred play periods ifthey send a REST N message default N is 2 hours if they are in a non preferred play period but are active see below and their activity timer expires When a player starts resting their state is changed to resting player starts resting event bystanders receive a player starts resting event and observer events timers are frozen as appropriate see above A player stops resting when they reach the start of one of their preferred play periods if after any explicit REST timeout when any explicit REST timeout expires if during a preferred play period 20 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 ifthey send a message other than REST while resting When a player stops resting their state is changed to active generate a player stops resting event causes recap wakeup message to player and observer events anyhub and dilemma timers are reinstated may trigger custom mission effects if player is payer in need in any mission s User changes to player s resting times made on the player s public website do not take effect until the following day Actions Can only performed if state is playing If an action other than Rest is attempted while resting then Player is deemed to be active for the n
93. ying e g start of day from other system events game becomes inactive while playing e g end of day from other system events of any of the above m event different silo flag copy of observed event fields for efficiency event type player other player thing text other system related game time system time no player destination silo events destination GEET destination EE 00 0 0 0 0 00 T EE er eg ll local event d local event destination IR local event ends local event destination 3l reason text message players flag message text oO emm m Mino EE reason text message players flag C opo SS Se si thing spawned reason start of ee eee destroyed thing destination silo cause event thing destroyed silo created destination sio reason hub no experience hub dilemma hub mission hub chat destination 41 19 09 2006 IPerG FP6 004457 Deliverable 12 5 7 3 DOTF Berlin Message Specifications linked to Game Events 7 3 1 Introduction All Messages sent to players are built from Message Specifications For Barcelona message specifications see DOTF Berlin_Message_Specification doc Messages are keyed to Game Events EORNM Message Description Indicative Text eemments specification from Barcelona Short Name with minor edits things to do with players u ii verb not recognised This key word is not recognised The main key words are SAY NO SUCH COM command not SAY TO GO PICK re

D12.5 Delivery of the second City as Theatre prototype

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