Haphazard Journey by Starlight

with thanks to Fortune Cookie for the use of this graphic

creative commons licence details

Ron and I created a game that I hope we can play at a Hide and Seek Sandpit event in the near future. You can view the untested rules here: http://ludocity.org/wiki/Double_Agent_/_Watch_Your_Back We trying to think of games which might create a raised awareness of body language. The Ludocity site includes lots of other wonderful street games - definitely worth taking a look.

Very grateful for any feedback.

Posted by Celinelj at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Chick2Go

GPS enabled East End Walking Tour

Tower Hamlets' Cemetry GPS Workshop

Dockers' Dilemma

A location-based game developed on the mscape platform with a flash interface.

Posted by Celinelj at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm always going on about how I believe we can convey meaning to location-based experience participants through movement. Not our own movement...but theirs. That all sounds a little macabre..thoughts of human puppetry spring to mind, however spaces are constantly effecting our movement through space - architects know that....and although I haven't researched this in any detail, I'm sure filmmakers do something similiar using camera movements through space - now there's the ultimate control - not only do they have power over the direction in which we move through a location, but also the pace, speed, even the direction in which we LOOK. However, there's only so far you can control a users' movements in a game or would want to. One of the reasons we love games, after all, is because they give us a sense of agency.

So let's flip the idea on it's head...

Anyone watching big brother's little brother knows that we give a lot away through body language and psychologists know, saccadic eye-movement tells us a lot about the way a viewer perceives an image or a scene. What about our movements through space? Lancaster university have begun a research project called D-Sent to explore just that.

According to Usability News, they'll test their concepts using a location-based gaming environment. That in itself is interesting but I'm even more interested in considering the gaming applications! What an incredible game you'd have if game-play was based entirely around creating meaningful or misleading movements through space! Now that would REALLY get you thinking about movement and meaning!

Posted by Celinelj at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Proprioception. How come we never talk about it when to consider learning? I believe it plays a huge role.

Almost anyone involved involved in Serious Games will have heard the saying (usually attributed to Edgar Dale and his Cone of Experience), that...

"we remember 20 percent of what we read, 30 percent of what we hear, 40 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we say, 60 percent of what we do, and 90 percent of what we see, hear, say and do".

It's a claim that could probably do with clearing up (as all a bit convenient), but at the same time one that a large number of educators (me including), feel probably has some small element of truth..."

What I'd like is for someone to revisit this model, and when they do, include Proprioception in the mix. How is Proprioception involved in what we "do". How does doing something we do, sitting at our desk, manipulating an avatar differ from doing in "in body"?

Posted by Celinelj at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Celine LJ's biomap tracking levels of arousal during a walk along the ExCel Dock. Just coincidence that it's purple but very apt ;-)

I've always been fascinated by Christian Nolde's BioMaps so I jumped at the chance to have a go at making my own map a couple of weeks ago when I attended the Mapping Change for Sustainable Communities Workshop held on the Sunborn Yacht Hotel, Docklands.

Hooked up to a sensor measuring the moisture given off by my index finger (in other words sweat), I wasn't quite sure what was being tracked and apparently that's just the point - it's impossible to really map emotion or get an exact reading so the best you can do is measure arousal...which might be caused by anger, exertion, excitement, happiness.....and half of the fun is trying to work out afterwards how you were actually feeling! I did the mapping along the dock and for the whole way I chatted to another particpant - Gordon...Comparing visual maps, it's clear that even on the same walk it's impossible to assume the reactions of participants. Our maps were entirely different. Maybe it wasn't the walk at all and just the conversation....

Posted by Celinelj at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is probably one of those times when I should think before I write......but I never listen to my own advice...so I'm just going to ramble this evening....

I've been thinking again about passing location-based data into Second Life....Is there are point? Well some of the newest SL mash-ups use location-based data fed in from the real world...you can walk across a map of the united states in SL and see live information about the US weather system directly over the top of your avatar...using SL to be able to play with the scale and then experience that data in a 3D embodied, ALMOST physical but certainly immersed way.

And then thinking about the SGI plans..I definitely think it'd be interesting to walk into the Virtual SGI and see avatars - like strange ghosts representing real people walking around the virtual building...why? I think there's an element of voyeurism there...getting to see what everyone's up to...even behind the closed doors. Or at least seeing where they are - like a security guard sitting behind her surveyance cameras. But more fun because you can walk amongst them...and they'd be totally unaware...unless there's some way using projectors or sounds to let the people in the real building know there are virtual visitors nearby.

I can see the potential for a simple "collision" game. Come to think of it, Blast Theory's "Can You See Me Now" uses this kind of model - but in a less pervasive, more event driven way.

I can also see the potential for cross-breeding style games in which virtual SGI is filled with primordial soup....the real-life people who work there are all represented in the virtual world as amoebas (I don't mean that to sound rude!) outside visitors bring in extra cross-breeding material and new exotic genes to add to the pool...maybe the structure of the Amoebas DNA is somehow related to something simple like where someone has travelled from, or the letters in their name.....and then as people's paths cross, day in and day out, the amoebas are cross-breeding, maybe inbreeding...and of course some activities in real life will be very repetitive and lead to very distinct breeds, less frequent activities would introduce new strains...and just like Spore, the amoebas are developing into races, complex beings....

OK, that's not so much a game as some kind of odd experiment or simulation but it'd be fascinating to watch the beings develop as an SLer and equally curious to see how your actions, habits, everyday behaviour as a real-life-er is effecting the development of a species...I have a feeling you'd learn something about social networks through this.

SL is always aware of every movement that every avatar makes as my last post testifies..that information is easy to get hold of. Is there any way to make a game IN SL out of THAT information? I think a better question might be...what kind of game could you create if you sometimes REVEALED data about everyone's location to everyone else in SL? And even more interesting, if you sometimes hid or offered incorrect information...

Posted by Celinelj at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I spend a lot of time exploring the way players can use their bodies to interact with games so it's nice to come across an entirely new aproach.

SMARTlabs' Actionchair is an especially interesting take on this idea. Can you think of any other human computer game interface in which the device moves YOU? The closest I have come to an equivalent is the rumble box on a game controller.

I think the idea of the chair is to allow children with physical disabliities to take control of their own movement, perhaps also to offer a sensual experience.

It would be interesting to turn this on its head - create a chair for able-bodied players in which they control some movements, but the chair limits or controls (perhaps in unexpected ways), the others. A challenge of adaptation.

Location-based games don't exactly control players' movements...certainly not physically, but they do manipulate (usually only once the player has agreed to engage). I like the idea that location-based games are an invitation to dance and create meaning.

Posted by Celinelj at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

© 1994-2007 Proboscis.

A term used to describe a variety of different approaches, but I like the one offered by Proboscis.

"Bodystorming is similar to brainstorming except it involves physical interaction and engagement with the system through a playful acting out of the issues, techniques, interface and interaction possibilities".

Giles explains that "our particular use of it as a technique is as an 'experience' for working with people in communities - giving abstract ideas a physical presence and sense of interaction that are often remote and difficult to grasp"

It is exactly the idea I was searching for in my last post but I would never have come up with such a clear and beautiful explanation. Funnily enough I already knew of Bodystorming, but I'd never have made the connection between this experience and my clumsy ideas about location-based learning and idea generation without google.

Posted by Celinelj at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)