Ubiquitous Ambient Gaming - Game2 : Growl Patrol

From EQUIS Lab Wiki

Contents 1 Description 2 Rules 3 Interfaces 3.1 Visual interface 3.2 Ambient audio 4 Possible additions

Description

All the cages of a zoo have been opened and the animals are wandering in the city. The player has to bring back the animals to their cages. A player earns money for each animal that he brings back. Some animals can be caught without any tools, some require tools to be caught. A player can buy tools with the money he has earned. The goal is to earn as much as possible.

There are 4 types of animals : three that can be caught and brought back into their cages, and tigers that can’t be caught and can eat the animals.

Rules

• To catch an animal, a player has to get close to the animal’s location.
• If a player gets too close to a tiger, the tiger will eat the animals he had collected.
• To get money, a player has to bring back the animals to their cages, the cages are at different locations according to the type of animal.
• A player can only hear and see the tigers and the animals he can catch.
• A player can buy tools at the cage locations.
• The animals that need more expensive tools to be caught are worth more.

Interfaces

Visual interface

• a map with
  • the position of the cages, the tigers and the animals the player can catch that are around
  • the type of animal it is
• an interface to allow :
  • to buy a new tool
  • to know how much money the player has

Ambient audio

• the position of the cages, the tigers and the animals the player can catch that are around
• the type of animal it is

Possible additions

• With this game, only 2 possible use of ambient audio are made : location and type. More ambient information might be too much for the player to differentiate it. Here are 2 other ways of using ambient audio that won’t be implemented yet :
  • status :
    • The player could hear all the animals, and the ambient audio would give him information on whether he can catch this type of animal or not.
    • The tiger would only eat when he is hungry which happens every other time, and it would be interesting to know when he is hungry or not.
  • progress of a task :
    • When the player comes near a cage, he would be able thanks to the ambient sound to know how much of one type of animals is left wandering.
    • The player would know how much time he has before the tigers are hungry again

• Make it a multi-player game :
  • 2 players can compete to get the most money
  • 2 teams can compete
  • one team can have a limited time to get as many animals as they can
  • one team can have unlimited time to get the animals, but there is a significant amount of tigers