Discrete Encounters - A Mobile Game with a Purpose

This project was performed in collaboration with the National Institute of Informatics, Japan and the National ICT Australia. The purpose of this game is to model real life movement patters of people by using avatars in Second Life.

For more information about the concept of Game with a Purpose, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_with_a_purpose

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NII
• NICTA
• Second
• Life
• Mobile
• Game

[fawadnazir]

The patterns that we track are just who meets whom. The data base had three fields. TimeStamp , Source_Avatar, Target_Avatar. For example Avatar_A meets Avatar_B at time 8 AM. So the record is : 8 AM, Avatar_A, Avatar_B. Got it?

[fawadnazir]

Mobile Social Network : A network of mobile phones in which users can share content with their social contacts opportunistically. Is it clear? Like I meet my boss daily, so he is in my mobile social network, coz my mobile can talk to his mobile and share content.

[phaysaal]

would you please define 'mobile social network'?

is 'mobile' related to 'social network which is in mobility' or 'social network through mobile phone'.... or something else?

[phaysaal]

I don't understand #1.

When the avatar is waking up.. going to office..etc... but no phone call yet.... how can the program/algorithm in the mobile phone track this movement pattern... and you collect the data?

you mentioned you programmed the mobile phone... isn't it?

[fawadnazir]

Actually, in Second Life (The environment in which this game was developed) we have to program objects not avatars (game players). Therefore, i programmed the objects i.e. a mobile phone and then avatars wear this object or hold it. I hope it makes sense?

How: I was developing algorithms for Mobile Social Network and testing on conventional evaluation methods/models. The results were not satisfactory coz the current models are limited to either a distribution,space or movement. I hope it helps.

[ngchaudhry2]

It seems that the sole purpose of the mobile phone is that it has your algorithms running on it and while the people play the game you record their interactions on it. Later on these interactions will be used by you as some sort of input data for your algorithms. Is this correct? If so then why have a mobile why not imbed the recording option in the character itself.I am actually interested in this from a problem solving aspect of your solution, i.e how and why you came across this solution.

[gothexperiments]

nice concept

[fawadnazir]

The game will be played as a normal game and people can enjoy it as they do enjoy other games. The only difference is while people are playing they will have a virtual mobile phone inside the game which has our algorithms running on it. People will not notice they are carrying a mobile phone though. This will actually simulate a real-life environment in which people carry mobile phones... I hope it helps... please feel free to ask more questions :)... Thanks a lot.

[gvanto106]

Fawad what do you mean with 'monitor the patterns and apply them on our algorithms'? Will this 'game' be used by people on their mobile phones eventually and then how will it work? Whats in it for the user/game player? Very nice graphics, love it! :-)

[fawadnazir]

The idea is to model the working day movement patterns on common people. Like for example: a person get up at 7 AM, take the train, goes to office, have a coffee at Starbucks, back to work etc etc... In this game people are given some tasks and they have to finish those tasks collabratively to win the game. While people play the game we monitor the patterns and apply then on our algorithms. I hope its makes a little bit of sense? If not, then wait by the time e make this game public :)