7. Interactions, modalities and technologies

GreenScaping the world - challenge accepted

GreenScape is a purposeful fun game that captivates and challenges the gamers in an online multiplayer platform. Gamers go through the game trying to solve different real life problems about climate change competing for the best ranking by working together with their allies. The game gives knowledge and awakes emotions that lead to the players looking at the world differently, yet it still is kept fun and challenging to motivate players to strive for a better ranking. The narrative as well as the modalities used are part of the fun and captivation of the game. 

Interactions 

Gamers need the game interactions to be as natural as possible using multiple modalities. The research of human-technology interaction supports people interacting with technology the same way they would in human-human interaction. People rely a lot on visual cues in interaction and thus the main modality used in our product is visual modality. The secondary modalities include audio, gestures and tactile signals such as voice and mid-air gesturing or "talking with your hands". Tactile modality gives added information into the game with wearables bringing possibilities for using touch instead of a mouse or giving information to the player through for example vibration or temperature changes, and even mapping the players physical reactions to indicate changes in emotions (affective computing). 

Being a game, graphical visual elements are an important factor of the interaction. The audio, gestures and the tactile information bring an added natural and beyond natural interaction elements to the table where the visual is enhanced by sound as well as giving the gamer full ability to concentrate on the activities rather than reading a text. Adding gestures and tactile information also supports the natural movement as well as conveys more information than by just concentrating on the information exchange in words between the gamers. 

Quick gains from learning to sort the rubbish - a task inside the game

The multiplayer online game has different types and levels of tasks inside the overall narrative of solving real life problems - climate issue. One smaller task inside the game is a challenge where individual gamers can gain more power/currency for the multiplayer games. The gamer has to work against the clock sorting rubbish from the sea to the right containers as pollution of the sea is a real problem in most places of the world.  

 

https://youtu.be/NxBdnQm9WKw

The gamer gets the opportunity to participate in a quick rubbish sorting task inside the game where points are rewarded according to time and accuracy. The gamer commits to the game by choosing "Start" either by clicking the icon or hand gesturing to the icon and touch selecting the icon from the wearable. 

When the game begins the visual of the ocean with the garbage and the garbage containers appears. The gamer can either use a mouse to drag and drop the garbage to the right bin or use hand gestures to select the garbage and grasp it with the wearable detecting the mid-air hand movement to drag and drop the items into the right garbage container. The container gives a sound and a vibration in the wearable that indicates if the choice was right or wrong. As the time goes on, the wearable start to emit warmth indicating the time running out. 

The physical reactions of the player can be detected through wearable and according to the level of the game there might come some twists into the game that make the game harder or easier for the player. If the players physical reactions indicate boredom the player could be moved straight to next level while playing with harder sorting tasks or curve balls appearing into the screen during the game. This change to harder game level would also come with a possibility to gain higher score. Motivation behind this level change and twists is to keep the game challenging and captivating as well as fun. 

The game ends when the sea is cleaned from all the rubbish or after the time limit is met. The player is revealed with the score and after exiting the game by choosing "continue" (with a mouse click or combination of hand gestures and wearable touch selection) the player is given possibility to learn and try to get a better score with a second try. After the individual games are over the gamers meet again to continue the multiplayer game. Some gamers arrive earlier back than others, but in most cases it pays of to try to better ones score. 

Technology

There are two different ways to play our game, Greenscape. First is the more regular way of using computer with monitor, mouse, and keyboard. In this situation your input devices are keyboard and a mouse (also, microphone if you are willing to communicate that way, not necessary) and output devices are monitor and headset/speakers. Our game is not fixed on only one operating system because we want to everyone with computer to be able to play our game. It is also possible to play on a laptop using the touch pad, but there are situations (like the rubbish sorting above) where moving the cursor fast and accurately is important, which makes using the mouse more efficient.

The second way of playing the game is the more futuristic way of using virtual reality glasses and a set of wearable sensor-based device, in our case data gloves. Data gloves collect data of postures and motions of human hand. Using this option to play our game gives a more captivating and likely more enjoyable gaming experience since using wearables enhance the naturality of the communication. When using this setup your input devices are the data gloves and a microphone which is integrated to the VR glasses. Output devices are either speakers or headphones and the VR glasses.

The next MVP concept

We didn’t have time to conduct the third round of prototype evaluation so here is our next evaluation plan. The next step will include a workshop with target group’s gamers and a presentation for the customer.

Workshop with gamers:

The workshop will happen in Teams or Zoom with four participants and two hosts. It is good to have two members from our group so that one of them can be the actual presenter and be responsible for the smooth running of the conversation and other one can be an opponent and participate in the discussion only when necessary.

The workshop will start with the video presentation about our product and the reasoning behind it. After the video all participants can ask questions about it. After any questions we will continue with brainstorming session in Mural or some other similar platform where all members can do actions at the same time and others can see it. First, we will ask participants thoughts about our project based on the video. They can write pros and cons on the platform and justify them verbally. After that we will focus on task development. In this prototype we had only two task examples, the garbage dragging minigame and selection tasks. In the workshop we will start to brainstorm different possible tasks with the participants. In the video is said that game will include voting and discussion in addition to minigames and selection tasks.

 

Customer's feedback:

The other part of this iteration round is the presentation of the game to the customer. This session will consist of the video presentation and after that the customer can ask questions from the whole team.

This session would have been successful on schedule, but unfortunately, we were unable to contact our contact person from Gofore. So this session will only take place later.

Based on workshop and customer’s feedback we will develop our prototype further.  

Further product development plan

The next big step with Greenscape would be to focus more on the gameplay itself. Make sure playing is entertaining and captivating. And to more clearly map the gameplay. 

We are interested in boardening our hardware options into VR, AR etc. other more futuristic platforms. 

Given more time and resources one of our main focuses would definitely be in affective computing. Therefore the game could be personalized on a whole new level. With the help of affective computing we could give the players new plotlines and game experiences.

Prototype video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5LmGw4Lv5U

Reflection of the team assignment

Our group has worked as a team with equal points shared among each team member (5 points each).