Vigilante-An Alternate Reality Gaming Experience in the Internet of Things

IJIRST –International Journal for Innovative Research in Science & Technology| Volume 2 | Issue 12 | May 2016 ISSN (online): 2349-6010 Vigilante-An Alternate Reality Gaming

Experience in the Internet of Things

Deendayal Choudhary Kaustubh Deshpande UG Student UG Student Department of Computer Engineering Department of Computer Engineering MES College of Engineering-Pune,India. MES College of Engineering-Pune,India.

Ganesh Kutty Rechana Nadar UG Student UG Student Department of Computer Engineering Department of Computer Engineering MES College of Engineering-Pune,India. MES College of Engineering-Pune,India.

Sumit .A. Hirve Assistant Professor Department of Computer Engineering MES College of Engineering-Pune,India.

Abstract

The emerging trend of Internet of Things promising a smarter connected environment and smarter solutions has led due to a rapid growth of mobile communication and wireless technology. This on the other hand has taken gaming away from the computer screen and back to the physical real world.Alternate Reality Games can be seen as stories and games that jump out of their cages and into the real world. These games also known as pervasive games can be designed to be played in public places like streets, shopping malls, museums and other interesting ventures. This paper focuses on the various aspects of alternate reality games like using the real world as the game-space, what makes these games compelling and what makes them possible today. The paper also highlights the design of development of our alternate reality game –Vigilante. Keywords: Alternate Reality, ARG, Applications of IoT, IoT Games, Iot Impact, Smart Environment, TINAG ______

I. INTRODUCTION Alternate reality Gaming has been around since 1960’s in many forms. They form a curious phenomenon usually intersecting city culture, mobile technology, network connectivity , alternate reality and multimedia hype. They aim to produce new user experience by utilizing all of the above features. ARGs can range from single player mobile phone games to artistically and politically ambitious mixed reality events that can span for months. They can either use high end technology or none at all.[5]

II. BASIC ARG TERMINOLOGIES Game-It is a rule based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome where different outcomes are assigned different values. The player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome. the player feels attached to the outcome and consequence of the activity are optional and negotiable.(Juul,2003) [5] Magic circle-The magic circle of a game is the boundary separating the ordinary from ludic and real from playful(Huizing,1938) [5] There are some key terms related to ARGs that differentiate them from other types of games [8] Puppetmaster- In an ARG the puppetmaster is the master controller of the game experience. Usually, the puppetmaster is also the game designer. As part of the responsibility of managing the game play, the puppetmaster watches how players are engaging and interacting with the storyline and makes adjustments to the story, scoring, or game mechanisms as necessary to keep players focused and addressing the goals of the game. Because ARGs are played with the real world as the game environment, the puppetmaster's role is absolutely critical to keeping the game and players on track. The Curtain-Much like the curtain behind which The Wizard hid in "The Wizard of Oz," the puppetmaster operates behind a theoretical curtain that separates the game management activities from the game play environment. The curtain is the veil that provides the illusion that the game is playing out naturally, and when it is managed well, the curtain masks the existence of the puppetmaster. Trailhead-This is a clue that leads players into the game. For marketing and media brand ARGs, lots of such clues are typically provided to attract as many players as possible. For learning ARGs, the same theory could be applied, especially for event-based ARGs. Rabbit Hole-Another name for trailhead, this term is more commonly used when there is one specific entry point for an ARG. TINAG, or "This Is Not A Game-”TINAG is commonly used to describe the tone of an ARG. The goal in the design is to create an experience in which the players don't necessarily feel like they are playing a game. The actions they take, the decisions they make, and the puzzles they solve shouldn't be extraneous to the storyline. That said, many ARG themes have a more fantastical feel, so the designer's responsibility is to create

All rights reserved by www.ijirst.org 140 Vigilante-An Alternate Reality Gaming Experience in the Internet of Things (IJIRST/ Volume 2 / Issue 12/ 024) a game experience that mirrors realistic activities as part of the game play even when the storyline makes it clear that the game is not "real."

III. GENRE OF PERVASIVE GAMES A pervasive game is a game that has one or more salient feature that expand the contractual magic circle of play spatially, temporally socially.[5] Assassination Games- One of the earliest and successful form of pervasive games. Example-Killer Storyline or narrative of killer-You are an undercover assassin. you’re living your everyday life. Going to work, school, home, performing your day to day tasks, hiding in plain sight. But in secret, you are stalking a target, always keeping a hidden weapon at hand. You build bombs and prepare weapons while trying to scrounge as much information on your target as possible. Taking the perfect shot at him requires you to wait for hours in a stairwell, trying to hide from his cautious gaze .Yet you must look over your shoulder constantly; you are also somebody else’s target. This is how to play killer. Pervasive larps - Role playing games where the player can adopt an alternate identity and engage in intricate gameplay. Treasure Hunts-The most established genre and always a crowd pleaser. Alternate Reality Gaming-They are the current genre in pervasive games. The IOT and connectivity has given a boost to these games.An alternate reality game takes the substance of everyday life and weaves it into narratives that layer additional meaning, depth and interaction upon the real world. ARGs are sometimes called pervasive games or trans-media storytelling. What is consistent among all of these definitions is that a story drives the game play and players are performing activities that mirror their real life.There tends to be confusion in the term ARG—some people use "alternate reality games" and "augmented reality games" interchangeably. For a point of clarification, alternate reality games refer to game play that integrates real life and online game play through a storyline that seeks to engage learners in an experience that seems real; augmented reality games refer to games where there is a technology overlay on reality that contributes to play (think the first down line on televised football games). The really confusing part comes in when augmented reality is used as part of an alternate reality game. To keep them straight, think about the word meanings; alternate reality seeks to create a different reality for game play purposes, whereas augmented reality adds additional information on to real life environments and objects. The Serious ARGs-Other than gaming and entertainment, nowadays ARGs are used for both commercial and social issues. As answer to a much discussed question “If ARGs can spark players to solve very hard fictional problems, could the games be used to solve real-world problems.[15]many examples of successful ARGs to solve real world problems can be cited. "Surviving A World Without Oil". Pitchfork Media. 13 April 2007. Retrieved 7 September 2007.World Without Oil, the first ARG centered on a serious near-future scenario: a global oil shortage. Another ARG, Tomorrow Calling, appears to be a test bed for a future project focused on environmental themes and activism. In order to filter players on the basis of how much they can contribute to such situations most serious ARGs are sponsored by organizations with activist or educational goals In October 2008 The British Red Cross created a serious ARG called Traces of Hope to promote their campaign about civilians caught up in conflict. The USC School of Cinematic Arts has run a semester-long ARG called Reality Ends Here for incoming freshmen since 2011. The game involves players collaborating and competing to produce media artifacts. In 2012, Reality Ends Here won the Impact Award at IndieCade, presented to games which "have social message, shift the cultural perception of games as a medium, represent a new play paradigm, expand the audience, or influence culture." In March 2008, McDonald's and the IOC launched Find The Lost Ring, a global ARG promoting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The game was run simultaneously in six languages with new story lines developing in each, encouraging players to communicate with residents of other countries to facilitate sharing of clues and details of the game as a whole. American track and field athlete Edwin Moses acted as a celebrity Game Master, and McDonald's Corporation promised to donate US$100,000 to Ronald McDonald House Charities China on behalf of the players.Thus it can be clearly seen that ARGs are here to stay and this kind of immersive entertainment will define the culture of the next century surely as movies dominated the last one.[16]

IV. VIGILANTE-THEORY AND DESIGN The storyline is implemented using hardware and software components that are connected to each other via the internet. The hardware modules execute and control the physical tasks to be performed by the player whereas the software modules achieve connectivity and drive the story forward based on players actions.

Fig. 1: Block diagram of vigilante system setup

Components used: Hardware components Arduino Uno The Arduino board actually is a specially designed circuit board for programming and prototyping with Atmel microcontrollers. [14]it was basically used to control the game interface and pass status to the game engine via the wifi module connected to the internet. Now Arduino Uno is highly popular for running hardware IOT projects.

Esp8266 Wifi Module The ESP8266 is a low-cost Wi-Fi chip with full TCP/IP stack and microcontroller capability. This module interfaces the arduino to web server via the internet.

Laser Module/Servo Motor/Infrared Sensors were used for one or more physical tasks. They interacted with the user and exchanged status and control messages to the game server.

Software Components: WEBSITE AND ANDROID APP-both these components act as rabbit-holes.

The website beavigilante.com was hosted which acts as a publicity medium as well as to lure players into the game in the first stage. The app on the other hand was used for second stage interaction with the game elements after the player “was in the game”. The website and app were constructed using the tradition software development components like - MYSQL DATABASE- MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS), it is the world's second most widely used RDBMS, and the most widely used open-source client–server model RDBMS. [9]Used for creating ,managing and manipulating databases that stored user information. - PHP- PHP is a server scripting language, and a powerful tool for making dynamic and interactive Web pages. PHP is a widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP.[10] - WAMP- WampServer is a Windows web development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache2, PHP and a MySQL database. Alongside, PhpMyAdmin allows you to manage easily your databases [11] - PHPMYADMIN- A tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the WWW.[12] - ANDROID STUDIO-Android Studio provides the fastest tools for building apps on every type of Android device. World- class code editing, debugging, performance tooling, a flexible build system, and an instant build/deploy system all allow you to focus on building unique and high quality apps[13] - ISSUES: Connectivity of heterogeneous components ranging from high level software to low lewl hardware components.Efficiency and power consumption had to be kept in check.Scalability and handling interference both from other electronic components and computer networks as well as from people and other real world entities.

V. CONCLUSION Vigilante was implemented in a closed complex since it was a test run successfully on a small scale. IOT offers the feature of scalability hence the game can be scaled up for large scale implementations as well. A compelling storyline and simplified technology is what makes an ARG successful. Care must be taken to not drown out the storyline and player actions by increased overhead and complexity of the game setup.Just as the scope of IoT is vast the concept of gaming in IoT can be extended in other applications as well. Business analytics do believe that for an IoT world to be a lucrative world, it needs to be fun and rewarding. Because humans are often not comfortable with giving up control to autonomous systems, these systems need to be autonomous as human interaction in each and every level of system processing would increase overhead and turn off users. Thus the human computer or human system interaction must be fun and relieving. Before too long it can be predicted that low-cost sensors and apps will be incorporated into just about everything even in the things we throw away. We'll have smarts built into everything from soda cans to toothbrushes to fashion apparel. Some will be basic and promotional, while others will be more sophisticated [7]. A

All rights reserved by www.ijirst.org 143 Vigilante-An Alternate Reality Gaming Experience in the Internet of Things (IJIRST/ Volume 2 / Issue 12/ 024) simple example can be of a game that gave the user a badge every time he takes the train, and after so many trips gives him a free family ticket, and the system compensated the user in a small way when a train was late. The user would then want to play that game and also use that system. Thus while introducing complex systems to a novice user gaming can act as the ice breaker and even interest the user to move a bit out of his comfort zone into the world of technology. Like the technology involved, the business implications of IoT game-playing are profound and complex. And any business that taps it properly is sure to be the game winner [7][4][2]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to our Project Guide Prof.Sumit A Hirve for his valuable insights and support.

REFERENCES [1] Game Design in an Internet of Things -Paul Coulton, Dan Burnett, Adrian Gradinar, David Gullick & Emma Murphy. [2] Ted Pollak, Senior Gaming Analyst at JPR. [3] Pervasive Games-Theory and Design by Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros, Annika Waern. [4] Psychology of Future Internet (FI) and Internet of Things (IoT) by Ai Keow Lim (PhD), Edinburgh Napier University. [5] Playing games with the Internet of Things. For Information Week by Peter Waterhouse- senior technical marketing advisor ,CA Technologies’ strategic alliance. [6] Koreen Olbrish founder Tandem Learning, The ABC's of ARGs: Alternate Reality Games for Learning [7] https://www.mysql.com/ [8] www.w3schools.com/php/ [9] www.wampserver.com/en/ [10] https://www.phpmyadmin.net/ [11] http://developer.android.com [12] http://www.instructables.com/. [13] Chris Dahlen (Columnist - Pitchfork Media, 2008) [14] Sean Stewart, Chief Executive, Fourth Wall Studios, author of the cross media international bestseller Cathy’s Book.