Ambient Quest:
An ambient game simulation
Mark Eyles
Advanced Games Research Group
Department of Creative Technologies
Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries
Emerging Issues in Game Design
If the seminal 1976 ambient music
album Music for Airports became a
21st century ambient role playing
game, what would it play like?
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Overview
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Games
Computer role playing games
Computer technology
Ambient intelligence
Pervasive games
Ambient music
Ambient games
Ambient Quest
Ambient games future
Emerging Issues in Game Design
What is a computer game?
• An interactive entertainment played against,
or with the aid of, computer generated
characters or tokens in a computer generated
environment.
• A single player game has a series of
interesting obstacles to overcome in order to
gain rewards.
• A multiplayer game has a series of interesting
obstacles to overcome at the expense and/or
with the help of other players to gain rewards.
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Computer game properties:
Commitment to play
• Learning curve
• Play time
• Civilization 2 vs. Tetris vs. Hangman
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Computer game properties:
Location and movement
• Fixed (Console, PC, Set top box)
• Mobile (Mobile phone, Nintendo DS)
• Require movement
– In one location (Football, Eye Toy)
– In many locations (Alternate Reality Game)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Computer game properties:
Commitment and movement
Commitment required to play the game
Stationary in one
location while playing
Console/
PC
Moving around in one
location while playing
Arcade
Moving around many
locations while playing
Football
LARP
Cross
country
Eye Toy
Handheld
Set top
box
Casual
games
Mobile phone
Ambient games
Commitment needed to decide to start playing a game
Player distance travelled
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Role playing games
• To suggest a definition of computer role
playing games:
– Look at the history of RPGs
– Look at the game play in RPGs
– These two approaches then inform a
definition of role playing games
Emerging Issues in Game Design
History of role playing games
• Pen and paper and computer role playing
games formalise the playful role playing of
childrens’ make believe worlds by adding a
set of rules
• This formalisation of role playing allows
details to be shared, so that the game can be
shared and seen to be played fairly according
to an agreed set of rules
• A key component of role playing games is
stories
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Chauvet Pont-d'Arc
Story telling
Le Voyage dans la lune
• Spoken
• Pictures
– Cave paintings (30,000+ years ago)
• Written
– Gilgamesh (around 2000 BC)
• Moving images
– Cinema (from the 1880s)
• Interactive
– Colossal Cave Adventure (1975ish)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Table top war-gaming 1
• Kriegspiel
– 19th century
– Lieutenant Johann von Reisswitz based on
a design of his father Baron von Reisswitz
– Players move tokens representing troops
around a map, under the guidance of an
umpire
– Assured Prussian victories
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Table top war-gaming 2
• Little Wars
– A set of table top war-gaming rules
– H. G. Wells - 1913.
– Commenting on Kriegspiel:
• ‘as it is played by the British Army, is a very dull
and unsatisfactory exercise, lacking in realism,
in stir and the unexpected, obsessed by the
umpire at every turn, and of very doubtful value
in waking up the imagination, which should be
its chief function’. (Wells, 1913)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Fantasy literature
• J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit, 1937
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1954 to
1955
Emerging Issues in Game Design
War-gaming + Fantasy
• Chainmail
– First table top role playing game,1971
– Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren
• Dungeons and Dragons
– Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), 1974
– Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Evolution of computer role
playing games
• Start with text adventures
• ‘Advent’ or ‘Adventure’, written by William
Crowther ‘around 1975 give or take a year’
• Expanded by Don Woods to Colossal Cave
Adventure in 1976
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Evolution of computer role
playing games
• Zork, 1978, released by Infocom 1980
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Evolution of computer role
playing games
• Add role playing
– Richard Garriott’s 1979 Apple II game
Akalabeth
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Evolution of computer role
playing games
• Character attributes
– Ultima 1, 1980, developed by Richard
Garriott, published by Origin Systems Inc.
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Evolution of computer role
playing games
• Control a party of characters
• Race and character class mechanisms
– Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad
Overlord, 1981, Sir Tech Software
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Evolution of computer role
playing games
• Advances in technology…
– Improvements in graphics
– Increasing sophistication and complexity
– Addition of 3D graphics to Multi User
Dungeons
…but retaining core RPG mechanisms
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Role playing gameplay
mechanisms
• Role playing game mechanisms have
remained very similar
– Compare Ultima, 1980, with Oblivion, 2006
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Role playing gameplay
mechanisms
• Mechanisms commonly found in RPGs:
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Races
Classes
Attributes
Skills
Experience points
and experience
levels
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Combat
Resource management
Puzzles
Story and Quests
Exploration
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Role playing gameplay mechanisms
Emerging Issues in Game Design
RPG
mechanisms
in other
game genres
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Core features of RPGs
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Choice of player races
Choice of player classes
Player attributes
Player skill development
Experience points and levels
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Suggested definition of computer
role playing games
• In computer role-playing games players control one or more
characters that gain ‘experience’ through the completion of game
objectives. The ‘experience’ is manifested as player moderated
changes in player character attributes (‘strength’, ‘intelligence’
and ‘luck’ for example) which allow the player character to evolve
over the duration of the game.
• Additional player character customization is facilitated through
modification of character differentia such as race and class when
initiating a player character ready for play and by game-play
educed character modification during play, such as development
and improvement of a skill by repeated use of that skill, or the
spending of ‘skill points’ gained when levelling up.
• The player character descriptors (attributes, differentia and
game-play educed modifications) affect the in-game interactions
between the player character, non-player characters and items in
the game environment. The environment, objects, characters and
interactions are effected in a virtual environment.
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient technology
• This section starts with some assumptions
about ambient games that will be made
explicit later:
– Ambient games are as ‘ignorable as they are
interesting’ (Eno, 1978)
– Consequently it should be possible for the player to
ignore the game, if they wish, while still playing it
– The game should physically surround them
• First we will consider the growth of computer
technology and its future
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Growth of computer technology
One computer
Many users
One computer
One user
Many computers
One user
Time
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Massively many
intelligent computers
One user
Growth of computer technology
• One computer – Many users
–
–
Charles Babbage designs a computer 1821
EDSAC 1 (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) 1949 the
world’s “first complete and fully operational regular electronic digital stored
program computer” (Jones, 2001)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Growth of computer technology
Digital Rainbow 100 1982
http://pc-museum.com/officewing.htm
• One computer – One user
– 1981 IBM introduced the ‘personal computer’
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Growth of computer technology
• Many computers – One user
– The current state of play
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Growth of computer technology
• Ambient intelligent environments (the future)
Tom Cruise in Minority Report
http://www.visionnet.be/parahologram.html
• Massively many intelligent computers – One user
(Everyone is a user, not just Tom Cruise)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient intelligence
• There are a number of different technologies
that are enabling the development of ambient
intelligence:
– Interconnectivity
– Artificial intelligence
– The proliferation of computers
• These technologies support ambient
intelligence, which has:
– Ubiquity
– Transparency
– Intelligence
(Aarts et al., 2001)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient intelligence Ubiquity
• A massive number of interconnected
computers are embedded in the
environment
• ‘It is invisible, everywhere computing
that does not live on a personal device
of any sort, but is in the woodwork
everywhere.’ (Weiser, 1996)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient intelligence Transparency
• Transparency indicates that ambient
intelligence environments are invisible
and in the background (Aarts et al., 2001)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient intelligence Intelligence
• Intelligence relates to the interfaces
and ways these interconnected
computers respond and interact with
people through user friendly interfaces.
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient intelligence predictions
• By 2010, when Intel expects that every chip it produces
will have an antenna, there will be around 1,000
microprocessors per person
• Harbor Research predicts that by 2010 worldwide
revenues from network-related devices and associated
services will be $800bn, around half of which will come
from valued-added apps and services.
Department for Trade and Industry http://www.nextwave.org.uk/docs/markets.htm
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient intelligence
• Ambient intelligence environments offer
a promising technology for creating
pervasive games
• We will now consider pervasive games
and ambient games
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Pervasive games
• Pervasive games are games which extend
gaming experiences into the real world
– They include locative games in which players move
into the real world while playing and their position
and actions in the real world affect, and are affected
by, events in a virtual world
(Waern, 2006)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Pervasive games
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Location based games, especially using mobile technologies
– Example: Uncle Roy All Around You
–
Street Players use handheld computers to search for Uncle Roy, using the map and
incoming messages to move through the city. Online Players cruise through a virtual
map of the same area, searching for Street Players to help them find a secret
destination.
http://www.uncleroyallaroundyou.co.uk/
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Pervasive games - Augmented
reality
• Overlaying computer information onto the real world
– Example: ARQuake at the University of South Australia
http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/projects/ARQuake/www/index.html
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Pervasive games - Alternate reality
"...an obsession-inspiring genre that blends real-life treasure hunting,
interactive storytelling, video games and online community...”
•
(Borland, 2005)
A game in which events occurring online in a game world
affect and are affected by game events in the real world
– Example: Perplexcity
http://www.perplexcity.com/
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Pervasive games
• Ambient games are a type of pervasive game
• The pervasive game examples mentioned
vary from ambient games in
– The intention of the games (ambient games create
moods, they are not treasure hunts)
– The commitment the player makes to the game
(they do not have to put on back packs of computer
equipment)
– The level of attention required from the player
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Pervasive and ambient games
GAMES
Alternate reality
Pervasive
AMBIENT
AMBIENT
QUEST
Augmented reality
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Role
playing
Ambient music
• Ambient music informs ambient games
• Brian Eno coined the term ‘ambient music’ on
his 1978 album Ambient 1: Music for Airports
• In the sleeve notes of Music for Airports Brian
Eno gives a definition of ambient music:
– “Ambient Music must be able to accommodate
many levels of listening attention without enforcing
one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is
interesting” (Eno, 1978)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient music
• “I wanted to make a kind of music that
would actually reduce your focus on
this particular moment in time that you
happened to be in and make you settle
into time a little bit better.” (Eno, 2003)
• Think about the ways games might do
this while accommodating many levels
of attention and intervention
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
• Progress Quest - a game that requires
minimal player intervention
(www.progressquest.com (Fredricksen, 2004))
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
• Imagine a game similar to Progress
Quest, call it Ambient Quest, in which,
when the player starts the game, their
actions in the real world affect progress
in the game world
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
• The Ambient Quest
game world consists
of a virtual
environment
containing quests to
complete (achieved by
defeating monsters at various
locations)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
• The player chooses the degree to which they
wish to manage events in the game
• At one extreme the game runs itself, gathering
data from the player’s actions in the real world
and automatically applying this to the game
world
• At the other extreme the player can determine
how the real world data is applied in the game
world, micromanaging game interactions.
Passive
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Active
Defining ambient games
• Ambient Quest should be ‘as ignorable as it
is interesting’ (Eno, 1978)
• Players can dip in and out of the game
• The game is persistent, running in the
background, creating a mood, while players
are engaged in other activities
• They may respond to the game by modifying
their behaviour to affect their game progress
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
• Ambient games may be controlled by
everyday actions (i.e. not using a dedicated game input
device, mouse or keyboard) in everyday, real world
environments that have gameplay
consequences in a virtual game world
• These game play environments may be
facilitated by ambient intelligent technologies
that embed the game transparently in the
environment
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
• Ambient games allow the player to have
experiences that range from superficially
shallow to profoundly deep
• The player is able to choose how they focus
their attention on the game, and can alter their
degree of attention at will
• As with Music for Airports an ambient game
should accommodate many levels of
attention, many levels of involvement or
intervention, creating a mood in the
environment
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
• The involvement of the player in the
game is not determined by the game
• This is not a ‘push’ technology, but is
determined by the player who can
choose when to ‘pull’ game
experiences from the ambient game
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Defining ambient games
Ambient
music
+
Computer
games
+
Ambient
intelligence
Mood/Behaviour
Real/Virtual world
Ubiquity
Transparency
Intelligence
Role playing
mechanisms
Ignorable
Interesting
Emerging Issues in Game Design
=
Ambient
games
A definition of ambient role
playing games
•
•
•
‘Ambient games are designed to create a mood in an
environment through game interactions with players whose
behaviours, mediated by an ambient intelligent environment
or similar transparent game interface, create changes in a
virtual game world.
Ambient games are persistent and are as interesting as they
are ignorable, facilitating a wide variation in player
determined levels of involvement, from unaware to intensely
attentive play.
In ambient computer role-playing games player behaviours
affect one or more characters that gain ‘experience’, and
other character customizations, through the completion of
game objectives in a virtual world.’
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient Quest – single player
ambient game simulation
• Distance walked by players determines
progress in the virtual game world
• Players may engage more or less with the
game by
– Altering, or not altering, distance walked
– Choosing moves for their avatars or letting the
game move them automatically
• The game is ‘always on’
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient Quest – single player
ambient game simulation
• Ambient Quest is designed to create a
mood in the playing environment,
overlaying a sense fantasy adventure
on the real world and giving a hint of
other hidden worlds
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Future ambient games
• Imagine a job which involves fairly
repetitive actions which are not in
themselves especially rewarding.
• Could an ambient game be designed
that ran alongside this work and
brought an element of playfulness to
the job?
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Future ambient games
• Ambient Shelf Stacking Game
– Imagine an ambient game that drew its
data from supermarket shelf stacking
– Employees belong to different teams that
are represented by competing avatars in a
virtual world
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Future ambient games
• Co-operative gaming
– Ambient Garden Game
• Imagine an ambient game in which players are
together trying to nurture the plants in a virtual garden
through their actions in the real world
• Interpersonal relationships
– Ambient Relationships Game
• Imagine a Sims like game where the players’ real
world actions affect relationships of avatars in a
Second Life like virtual world
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Final thoughts
• Game players may play even when they are
not playing!
• Embed mood and behaviour altering game
playing in the world around us
• Open ended, endless nature of play points
towards new mechanisms and ways of
playing games
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Final thought
A sense of otherworldliness:
‘It is another world entirely and is enclosed within this
one; it is in a sense a universal retreating mirror
image of this one, with a peculiar geography …
composed of a series of concentric rings, which as
one penetrates deeper into the other world, grow
larger … each perimeter of this series of
concentricities encloses a larger world within’
Little Big by John Crowley
(Crowley, 1981)
Emerging Issues in Game Design
Ambient Quest:
An ambient game simulation
Questions
Mark Eyles
www.eyles.co.uk
mark@eyles.co.uk
Advanced Games Research Group
Department of Creative Technologies
Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries