Laura Anna Ripamonti

Opportunistic mobile games using public transportation systems: a deployability study

With the growing availability of personal communication devices, we are witnessing a tremendous increase in the demand for mobile services based on location and context. Mobile gaming as a service is, of course, no exception. Unfortunately, differently from other services, location- and context-based gaming strictly requires near-field communication to interact with nearby players to create teams and arenas. Since currently adopted technologies suffer from scalability (Bluetooth) or energy (WiFi) constraints, opportunistic networks (ONs) have already been addressed as a viable solution to involve a considerable number of players on a wider area. Nevertheless, it is not yet clear how player experience will be affected by the increased delay and probabilistic message forwarding introduced by an ON. In this paper, we address the aforementioned problems by studying, by means of simulations, the feasibility to deploy a contact-based game on top of the ON provided by the public transportation systems (PTSs) of three cities: Milan (Italy), Edmonton (AB, Canada), and Chicago (IL, USA). Furthermore, to provide playability and scalability considerations, we also study an opportunistic collaborative version of a famous standalone game. The focus on this specific game is functional to foster the use of the PTS itself. The contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we provide simulation results hinting that deployment on a PTS is feasible when targeting users commuting inside the city. Secondly, we provide a number of considerations and guidelines for game designers to actually deliver a compelling and intriguing experience.

Managing the design-manufacturing interface in virtual enterprises through multi user virtual environments: a perspective approach

The interfaces among different organisational functions are often affected by barriers against integration, particularly in the case of design and manufacturing. The relevance of overcoming such barriers – that may become a driver of cost and opportunity loss – grows with the degree of virtualisation of the enterprise. In this paper the authors tackle the problem of lowering barriers between design and manufacturing in virtual enterprises through the exploitation of ICT (information and communication technology), that – in this vision – becomes a key success factor not only for eliciting (tacit) knowledge, but also for fostering social interaction. The paper explores the possibility to use virtual worlds (such as Multi User Virtual Environments) in virtual enterprises for creating suitable digital habitats able to support the higher levels of the semiotic ladder and then lowering the design–manufacturing integration barriers.

Cloud Computing to Support the Evolution of Massive Multiplayer Online Games

In these recent years, with the gain in popularity of online games, we are witnessing a progressive increment in the number of massive multiplayer online games available over the Internet. Given the scalability requirements imposed by a huge population of users over an extended length of time, game providers face the major challenge of long-term IT infrastructures dimensioning. In particular, the risks are over-allocation (wasting resource and money) or non-timely upgrades (loosing subscribers and revenues.) In this paper we advocate Cloud Computing as a viable solution to dynamically allocate resource for a massive game service infrastructure in order to satisfy users’ needs while minimizing maintenance costs. To this extent we envision a mid-term future where game provisioning will be performed by means of a three-tier architecture: the users, the game provider, and the cloud provider. We believe that many medium/small game providers may benefit from the on-demand resources allocation infrastructure offered by the cloud, due to shorter deployment time and reduced total cost of ownership.

Creating software engineering student interaction profiles for discovering gamification approaches to improve collaboration

Benefits of collaborative learning are established and gamification methods have been used to motivate students towards achieving course goals in educational settings. However, different users prefer different game elements and rewarding approaches. We present an evidence-based method and a case study where interaction analysis and k-means clustering is used to create gamification preference profiles. These profiles can be used with an agent-based simulation to evaluate how computer supported collaboration system users react to the gamification elements and how the collaboration dynamics change.

Procedural content generation for platformers: designing and testing FUN PLEdGE

Video games are a peculiar medium, standing at the crossing point between art and software application, and characterized by an active involvement of its audience. The complexity of the product generates a huge challenge for the companies that develop video games. In the development process, level designers play a crucial role: they are in charge of declining the theoretical framework developed by the game designer into game levels, which contain the actual gameplay scenarios. Hence, the final goal of any level designer is to valorize the game design by creating enjoyable gaming experiences while, at the same time, respecting several constraints. To lighten the burden on level designers, several semi-automated approaches to level generation have appeared in time, but the majority of these tools suffer from several drawbacks. In the present work, we tackle the issue of designing, prototyping and testing FUN PLEdGE, a general-purpose automated levels generator and editor for platform video games. Its main goal is to shrink development time while producing – unassisted – levels that are both playable and fun. Moreover, our tool provides the maximum freedom to the level designer, by avoiding to impose unnecessary constraints on the structure of the levels and by guaranteeing the possibility to modify and personalize by hand the generated levels. During this process, the generator assists the designer by suggesting corrections functional to the quality of the player experience. To prove the effectiveness of our prototypal application we have also developed and tested with players a platform game. In the same vein, we asked to a group of game developers to test FUN PLEdGE.

Enriching Community Networks by Supporting Deliberation

Community Networks (CNs), as conceived in the 1990s (Silver 2000; Bishop 1994; Schuler 1994) are virtual (or online) communities, strongly rooted in a specific territory, whose shared focus of interest is ‘public affairs’. Community networks have provided a framework for gathering civic intelligence (Civille 2000; Schuler 2001), for supporting the development of people’s projects (De Cindio, 2004), and for promoting public dialog among citizens and between citizens and local institutions (De Cindio and Ripamonti 2005; Ranerup 2000; Osborne and Gaebler 1992).

On the Feasibility of Opportunistic Collaborative Mixed Reality Games in a Real Urban Scenario

In these last years the growing availability of personal mobile devices has boosted the demand for mobile services offered based on location and context. Mobile gaming services are, of course, no exception. Unfortunately, the 3G networks infrastructure struggles to keep pace due to scalability limitations and a pull-based service model. One feasible solution, also for gaming, is to adopt an Opportunistic Network (ON) to exploit unplanned contact opportunities between players to perform data exchange and forwarding in ad hoc mode. When designing a game for an ON, the main issue is about forecasting the feasibility of a given gameplay when applied to a real - and complex - environment. In this paper we address this issue proposing an opportunistic game that is meaningful for the category of collaborative puzzle games. The game is evaluated by means of simulations on the topology of a real city in order to understand its scalability and setback on the gameplay.

Supporting seniors rehabilitation through videogame technology: a distributed approach

The current demographic ageing in Europe is the result of a relevant economic, social, and medical development. Nevertheless, this is also leading to an increase in the demand for Long Term Care (LTC) by seniors. In this paper we address this problem by designing a distributed software architecture exploiting intuitive and non-invasive off-the-shelf technology typically used for videogame consoles. Adopting a remotely controlled serious game for in-home rehabilitation activities is more engaging for the elder and may also provide easily tunable parameters to better adapt the game therapy to the actual patient recovery. The proposed solution, thanks to its user-friendly interfaces and smooth learning curve, will also contribute in minimizing the interferences in the elders private life.

Scaling online collaborative games to urban level

With the growing availability of personal communication devices we are witnessing a tremendous increase in the demand for mobile services based on location and context. Mobile gaming is, of course, following this same trend. Unfortunately, differently from other services, location- and context-based gaming strictly requires near-field communication to interact with nearby players in order to create teams and arenas. Since currently adopted technologies suffer from scalability (Bluetooth) or energy (WiFi) constraints, Opportunistic Networks (ONs) have already been addressed as a viable solution to involve a considerable number of players on a wider area. While massive multiplayer games are commonplace on wired networks, it is not yet clear how player experience is affected by the increased delay and probabilistic message forwarding introduced by a huge population over an ON. In this paper we address this problem by proposing an opportunistic collaborative game, which is meaningful for the category of collaborative puzzle games, and evaluating its playability and scalability by means of simulations on a real city topology.

Evaluating design constraints for proximity-based games in a real urban topology

In these last years we are witnessing a growing availability of personal mobile devices equipped with short-range communication technologies. This new technology wave is pushing for innovative services based on location and context which are difficult to provide by means of the classical 3G networks infrastructure. Among these new services, portable games based on contact are already moving down this path and extending to a large, urban and multiplayer scale thanks to the exploitation of Delay Tolerant and Opportunistic Networks. In this paper we contribute with practical directions to game designers about constraints impacting on gameplay and game mechanics when designing the above games for an urban-wide scale. Our investigation is also performed by means of simulations on the topology of a real city in order to estimate technical bounds to the practical design of compelling games.