Gameplay and

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• Gameplay and
• Design Issues
• in
• Outdoor Augmented Reality Games

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• SPEAKERS
• Assoc. Prof. Bruce Thomas
• Director of Wearable Computer Lab, UniSA
• Chief Technical Officer, a_rage pty ltd
• Dr. Wayne Piekarski, Assoc Director, WCL
• Director of Research, a_rage pty ltd
• Benjamin Avery
• UniSA Computer and Information Science
• Honours student, WCL
• Lead Game Programmer, a_rage pty ltd
• Joe Velikovsky
• Creative Director
• Game Design Lead, a_rage pty ltd

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• OVERVIEW 3 AR Game Case Studies
• ARQuake Assoc Prof Bruce Thomas
• 3-D Moon Lander
• the ARAGE Hardware Ben Avery
• 3-D Sky Invaders Joe Velikovsky

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Gameplay Design Issues in Outdoor Augmented
Reality Games Case Study ARQuakeAssoc. Prof.
Bruce Thomas, WCL UniSA
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What do people like dislike about ARQuake?

• What aspects of the game should be highlighted?
• What should be avoided?

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ARQuake in a nutshell

• Built in 2000, first Outdoor AR GPS game
• Take a desktop pc First-Person-Shooter game and
  modify it - to be used as an indoor/outdoor AR
  game.
• Track the users head orientation and position in
  an indoor/outdoor setting.
• Player, NPCs (Critters, Monsters), Game Objects
  (Health, Guns, Armour, Ammo) are all rendered
  normally.
• Model physical buildings - and render the game
  walls black, co-located with physical walls.

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ARQuake in a nutshell

• Black will appear transparent in HMD to the user,
  but the rendered black graphics will occlude
  monsters, critters and game objects.
• Virtual walls, corridors, pillars, and doors are
  all still rendered.
• As the user walks around the physical world
  moving their head, the game will update with this
  orientation and position information.

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Original/Desktop Quake
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Augmented Reality
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Non-AR View
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AR View
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Example CrittersQuake vs ARQuake
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demon
New textures
Old textures
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enforcer
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soldier
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zombie
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ARQuake In-Game Footage

• Video 1

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Field of View (FOV)

• FOV of the HMD was 24 degrees horizontal
• Necessitated excessive head-turning by the users.
  
• thought to be extremely narrow.
• FOV of 90 degrees
• commented that this felt much better.
• Registration problems.
• FOV of 120 degrees.
• weird difference in parallax
• physical ?? virtual - uncomfortable.

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Visuals That Worked Well

• Floating objects worked well
• they looked like they belonged in the game
  world.
• Users simply accepted them as part of the game.
• One effect the users liked was flames
• the fire in ARQuake looked pretty good and it
  looked genuinely like fire.

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Walking Around

• Users were able to walk through the virtual
  walls.
• Walking through walls, while being an
  interesting idea.. It looked solid, but I wasn't
  worried about walking through it because I knew
  that there was a room on the other side.
  Strangely enough, I didn't want to go out the
  other side.
• One user noticed at one point, they were
  physically walking up a hill, but the game
  depicted flat ground. They stated it seemed to
  feel, while unexpected, easier to walk up because
  it looked flat.

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Interaction

• Users experienced difficulties
• picking objects up.
• Objects tantalizingly within arms reach, but
  could not be picked up.
• This problem became quite frustrating for some of
  the users.
• Opening and closing doors - not difficult
• Flying monsters require the correct weapon and
  strategy

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Conclusion

• Users overall, enjoyed ARQuake
• Issues with Field Of View.
• Small orientation errors - quite noticeable.
• The standard shape of doors corridors in Quake
  worlds - not well-suited to ARQuake.
• The world feels better to the user, if it is
  brightly-lit.
• Use of skybox/sky colour should be avoided.
• Users did not like the use of shadows.
• Floating objects work quite well in ARQuake.

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A Study of Performance of Consumer Level Hardware
forOutdoor Augmented Reality Gaming

• by Benjamin Avery
• Supervisor Assoc Prof Bruce Thomas
• Assoc. Supervisor Dr Wayne Piekarski

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This Presentation

• Background
• AR On-The-Cheap
• Game Technology
• Example AR Game 3D Moon Lander
• Conclusion

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a-rage

• Research for a-rage AR game dev company
• a_rage ITEK provided scholarship for studies

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Background

• Augmented Reality is the overlay of
  computer-generated images onto the real world,
  using a Head Mounted Display

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Other Indoor AR Games

• Examples of Indoor AR games
• AquaGauntlet
• AR2Hockey
• MIND-WARPING
• TouchSpace
• etc

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Indoor is Easy

• Trackers can be tethered
• Very accurate trackers available
• Controlled environment

Image courtesy polhemus.com
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Outdoor is Harder

• Unpredictable environments
• Lower-accuracy trackers
• Limited computer power
• Limited power
• Mobility and reliability
• OST vs VST HMDs

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Outdoor AR Games

• Only two real examples
• ARQuake
• Human Pacman

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I want one at home?

• Expensive systems exist
• Accurate tracking(50cm), high-resolution, compact
• Cost AU20,000
• Too expensive for
• kids to play games on!
• Need a consumer-
• level alternative

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The Question

• Can AR games be designed and implemented, in such
  a way as to make them playable on low-performance
  level hardware?

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AR On-The-Cheap

• Our consumer-level hardware system
• Possible cost 500

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What problems does this cause?

• Cheap GPS is only accurate to 5 meters
• Trackers drift
• PAL/NTSC resolution
• Limited input
• so
• in your backyard
• is not yet possible ?

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Game Design vs AR Technology!

• Make the game fit the hardware limitations
• eg. OST - ghosts in Ghosts of Sweet Auburn
• GPS snap-to grid system, with hysteresis
• Picking the correct tracker
• Avoid registration with the real world

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3-D Moon Lander

• Example AR game - demonstrating the concepts
• Based on 1979 Atari game Lunar Lander - and pc
  clones

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GPS Snap-To
Video
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Conclusion

• Many games can be designed to work on this
  hardware platform
• Problems do exist, but careful Game Design can
  work around these
• We have tested the system outdoors and the GPS
  snapping and tracker work well
• Further play-testing by a_rage will reveal any
  other problems this system may offer, which we
  can then improve on.

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AR Game Design

• joe velikovsky Game Design Leadgame designer
  former national games market analyst,
  InformBACS, AFTRS JOETEEVEE.COM10 years in the
  games industry

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• HMV PROTOTYPE

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Design Elements

• 3-D AR port of Space Invaders
• 5 m GPS
• 2 locations 5m apart
• (Turret Bunker)
• Immersive game space N,W,E,
• Flames floating objects
• UFO FPS! Set in 1950s
• UI intuitive
• HMV is pointing device
• as per ARQuake
• Content TV set!
• Directional sound
• Dev cycle short

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5m GPS

• TURRET ?5m? BUNKER

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In-Game Video
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• AR OUTDOORS/INDOORS

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• IDG 2003 GAMES INDUSTRY
• WHITE PAPER

"I hope that peripheral companies start to look
at opportunities for getting the joystick out of
peoples hands and doing something different, -
or getting us away from the TV screen with
something like Head-Mounted Displays. I would
love to see someone take on this challenge of
establishing a real virtual environment with the
power that the new consoles should provide."
Ted Price, CEO, Insomniac Games Spyro,
Ratchet Clank from IDG 2003 Games Industry
White Paper p. 94-95
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• DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
• 1) Port hit games over to AR
• Space Invaders Old Games, New Platform
• 2) K.I.S. - Keep It Simple!
• Games low on Graphics / high on Gameplay
• 3) Play-Balance/Flow Theory - Challenge
  Reward
• 4) 10 Mini-games (like EyeToy bundle)
• 5) Risk management - Shorter Dev Cycle!
• Later bigger budgets, and longer games

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• GAME DESIGN
• 1) USER-FOCUSED GAMES (Plug Play)
• 2) SIMPLE ADDICTIVE GAMEPLAY FUN FACTOR
• 3) HIGH REPLAY VALUE
• 4) Age 15 - for physical co-ordination
• 5) SAFETY - in goggle view is never off

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Shoot-em-up 3-D
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Arcade Platform
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Adventure Puzzle
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Sports Action
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RTS
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• THEME PARKS ARCADES

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• WHY A.R. PLATFORM?
• 1) POSITIVE SOCIAL ASPECT (Multiplayer)
• 2) ACTIVE GAMING OUTDOORS Healthy
• 3) BROAD AGE GENDER APPEAL Adults, M F
• 4) FOLLOWS MOBILE GAMING TREND
• (e.g. cell phone games, GBA, N-GAGE PSP)
• 5) ADVANCES the gaming State of the Art
• 6) Look Feel instant appeal/looks awesome

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• CONSUMER HMV

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• Q A