Serious Communication for
Serious Games
Ross Kukulinski
ross.kukulinski@asti-usa.com
Photo by Derek Jensen
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Photo Courtesy of U.S. Military
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Tutorial Roadmap
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Serious games overview
Team communication & teamwork
Current game communication systems
Qualities of effective communication systems
Final thoughts and future directions
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Part 1
Serious Games are
Powerful Tools
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Serious Games …
• Allow soldiers to experience situations that
are impossible in the real world1
• Provide improved hand-eye coordination,
multi-tasking, and teamwork2
• Are uniquely flexible to support varied training
needs
1 Corti,
2006; Squire & Jenkins, 2003
2 Michael & Chen, 2006
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Serious Game Design
Broad Topic
– Why Games Work – The Science of Learning,
I/ITSEC 2011 Best Tutorial, Curtiss Murphy
– A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Ralph Koster
– Serious Game Design and Development, CannonBowers and Bowers
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‘Good’ Serious Games
Six Ingredients to a ‘good’ game1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Mechanics
Rules
Immersive Graphics
Interactivity
Challenge
Risks
What about communication?
1 Derryberry,
2007
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Part 2
Team Communication
and Teamwork
“…coordination and cooperation among team
members are foundational to the mission’s
success” – Serious Games that Improve
Performance, McGowan & Pecheux
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Fundamentals of Teamwork
The Big Five Core Components of Teamwork1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Team Leadership
Performance Monitoring
Backup Behavior
Adaptability
Team/Collective Orientation
Hypothesis: Communication key element?
1 Salas,
Sims, & Burke, 2004
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Communication and Performance
• America’s Army experiments
– Researchers measured team communication
• Communication network level
• Number of report-ins
• Number of normal communications
• Teams with regular organized reports had:
– Higher performance
– Higher estimated situational awareness
Schneider & Carley, 2005
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DARWARS Ambush!: Authoring
Lessons Learned in a Training Game1
• Communication skills are critical for success
– Requires effective communications training
• Communications capabilities differ widely
across varying military units
• Training system should be similar to real-world
communication system
1 Diller,
Orberts, Blankenship, Nielsen, 2004
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DARWARS Lessons Cont’d
• Primary functions of a convoy commander
– Establish and maintain communications within the
convoy
– Maintain communication with superordinate and
subordinate element commanders
Diller, Orberts, Blankenship, Nielsen, 2004
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Part 3
Current Game
Communication
System Capabilities
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Game Communication Options
•
•
•
•
Nothing
Text-chat
Game integrated voice communication
Third-party voice communication
None simulate real-world communication!
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Our Customer Feedback
• Some were content with what they had
• Some engineered custom solutions
• Many were frustrated
– Current game communication systems…
•
•
•
•
•
are not robust
are difficult to manage in large installations
do not simulate real-world radio communication
do not integrate well with other training systems
lack live technical support and expertise
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Communication Specifications
• Game After Ambush
– 8,118 words in technical specification
– 128 words for describing communication
• Games for Training (Draft – October 2011)
– 5,113 words in technical specification
– 128 words for describing communication
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Part 4
Qualities of Effective
Communication
Systems
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Communication System Requirements
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Simulate real-world communication
Centralized configuration
In-game user interface
Game integration
L-V-C interoperation
Exercise management tools
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1. Simulate Real-world Communication
• Simulated radios behave like real-world radios
– AM, FM, SINCGARS, HAVEQUICK, intercom
– Half-duplex radios
– Full-duplex intercoms
– Real-time dynamic radio noise
– Realistic propagation effects due to ranging,
occulting and radio power level
– Crypto system sound effects
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1. Simulate Real-world Communication
• Simulate voice communication
– Volume and quality degrades over distance
– Separate from radio simulation
• Trainees limited to channels they would have
in real-world (i.e. MBITR squad only)
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2. Centralized Configuration
• Most game classrooms have 30+ trainees
• Configuration should be centralized
– Radio configuration
• Frequencies, modes, crypto, etc.
– Communication profiles
• How many radios
• How are they configured?
– Network configuration (DIS, IPs, etc.)
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3. In-game User Interface
•
•
•
•
Support for multiple radios and intercoms
View radio channel and Tx/Rx status
Support changing radio channel
Ability to switch communication profile
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4. Game Integration
• Radio location from game entities for realistic
radio effects like ranging
• Player location for voice-communication
• Assign radios to vehicles for mounted training
– Players acquire vehicle-based radios when
mounted, lose access when dismounted
• After Action Review – Seek, FF, RW,
Bookmarks
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5. L-V-C Interoperation
• CCTT & AVCATT & other flight simulators
– Flight trainers configuration is inflexible
– Requires full-fidelity radio simulation and strict
adherence to DIS standards
• BCTC/MTC classrooms
• Interoperate with live radios
• Support mobile devices (i.e. Android)
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L-V-C Example
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6. Exercise Management Tools
• Radio analysis tool
– Live display of all radios on simulation network
– Search, sort, and compare radios
• Player monitor
– View all connected players, current status
• Configuration lock-down
– Prevent players from changing configuration
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Robust!
“Any game-based training system…must be
robust enough to allow for flexibility, it must
also guard against user or environmental
factors that could mitigate training value.”
Hussain & Ferguson, 2005
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Part 5
Final Thoughts
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Raise the bar
• Communication must be core element of
training and training budgets
• Improve communication requirements spec
– Communications modeling
– L-V-C interoperation
– Exercise management
1Hussain,
et al.
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Resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Carpenter, R., White, C., (2005) Commercial Computer Games in the Australian
Department of Defense
Corti, K. (2006) Games-based Learning; a serious business application.
Derryberry, A. (2007) Serious Games: online games for learning
Diller, D., Roberts, B., Blankenship, S., Nielsen, D. (2004) DARWARS Ambush!
Authoring Lessons Learned in a Training Game
Hussain, T., etal (2010) Development of game-based training systems: Lessons
learned in an inter-disciplinary field in the making
Hussain T. & Ferguson, W. (2005) Efficient Development of Large-Scale Military
Training Environments using a Multi-Player Game
McGowan, C., Pecheux, B. (2007) Serious Games that Improve Performance
Michael, D., & Chen, S. (2006) Serious games: Games that educate, train and
inform
Sims E., Salas E., Burke S. (2004) Is There a ‘Big Five’ in Teamwork
Snider, M., Carley K., Moon, I. (2005) Detailed Comparison of America’s Army and
Unit of Action Experiments
Squire, K. & Jenkins, H. (2003) Harnessing the power of games in education
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Thank You!
Ross Kukulinski
Advanced Simulation Technology inc.
ross.kukulinski@asti-usa.com
(650) 262-6559
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Communication Specification
9.0 Communications
The GAA product shall simulate at least three and up to five tactical
communications networks using Voice Over Internet Protocol
(VOIP) or other packet switched networks. The system shall
conserve bandwidth so that voice traffic correlates with the events
occurring within the game environment. Each user shall have multichannel VOIP capability to communicate with each game client and
the client‘s users via microphone/speakers or headset. The system
shall also reduce any sound lag and ensure that any lag is
imperceptible to the user (human ear). The system shall be able to
capture VOIP traffic for playback. The VOIP recording shall be
capable of synchronizing to the time and the events of the AAR file
during playback and segregate to each of the client user‘s voice
channels.
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Future Directions
• Closer integration between radios and game
environment
• Radio effects based on virtual-world terrain
• SAF voice and radio traffic
• Scalability for cloud based applications
• Communication analysis to assess teamwork
and soldier evaluation during AAR
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