Location-based gaming – Be aware, everywhere! – Wouter Wiegmans Bachelor Thesis Telematics, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Supervisors: Dr. ir. Johan Koolwaaij (Telematica Instituut) Ir. Martin Wibbels (Telematica Instituut) Dr. ir. Aart van Halteren (Universiteit Twente) Enschede, The Netherlands January, 2005 Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming - 2 - Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming Abstract Context-awareness is the ability of computing devices or applications to detect and sense, interpret and respond to aspects of a user's local environment and the computing devices themselves. When the concept of context-awareness is applied to mobile gaming, the real and virtual world can dissolve in each other, and the gaming application can become aware of the physical location of the player to which it can respond. Context-awareness adds a completely new dimension to mobile gaming; enhancing the overall mobile gaming experience. Therefore, context-aware services provide a great opportunity for improving existing, and developing new mobile games. This thesis presents the results of the actual development of a location-based game, preceded by and funded on an intensive literature study in the area of location-based gaming. - 3 - Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming - 4 - Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming Table of contents 1. Introduction............................................................................................................................... 9 1.1. Motivation............................................................................................................................. 9 1.2. Objectives............................................................................................................................. 9 1.3. Approach.............................................................................................................................. 9 1.4. Structure............................................................................................................................... 9 2. Context Awareness in mobile gaming ..................................................................................11 2.1. What is context ..................................................................................................................11 2.2. Context Awareness ...........................................................................................................11 2.3. Contextual information: Location......................................................................................12 2.4. Sensing the context: Location ..........................................................................................13 2.5. Mobile gaming....................................................................................................................14 2.6. Location-based Gaming....................................................................................................14 3. WASP & Mobile Life...............................................................................................................17 3.1. WASP.................................................................................................................................17 3.2. MobiLife..............................................................................................................................21 4. Current work ...........................................................................................................................24 4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................24 4.2. Location-based Games.....................................................................................................24 4.3. Comparison........................................................................................................................28 4.4. Location-based platforms..................................................................................................29 5. Game Concept .......................................................................................................................32 5.1. Requirements.....................................................................................................................32 5.2. The Game Concept ...........................................................................................................32 5.3. Playing the Game..............................................................................................................33 5.4. Locality ...............................................................................................................................34 5.5. Groups................................................................................................................................35 5.6. The competition .................................................................................................................35 5.7. Future work ........................................................................................................................36 6. The Game Architecture..........................................................................................................38 6.1. Other Game Architectures ................................................................................................38 6.2. The Pop Star Game Architecture .....................................................................................39 7. Implementation.......................................................................................................................50 7.1. Building a game world on the real world..........................................................................50 7.2. Building the actual game...................................................................................................53 7.3. Database structure ............................................................................................................56 7.4. The game running .............................................................................................................57 8. Evaluation ...............................................................................................................................62 8.1. Requirements.....................................................................................................................62 8.2. Functionality.......................................................................................................................62 8.3. Conclusion .........................................................................................................................63 9. Conclusions & Future work ...................................................................................................64 9.1. Conclusions........................................................................................................................64 9.2. Future work ........................................................................................................................64 10. References .............................................................................................................................67 - 5 - Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming - 6 - Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming Preface One could say that this thesis presents the results of my bachelor assignment on location-based gaming. Although this is true, as you will find out while reading it, I would say not all the results are included in this thesis. Of course, all the technical details are covered, but only few is written about the personal results of this assignment. In my opinion, being a student means the personal results of an assignment are as important as the technical results. I would like to thank the Telematica Instituut for giving me the opportunity to do my bachelor assignment at the Telematica Instituut and thereby allowing me to learn, not only within the area of my study Telematics, but also about myself as a person, and about the daily life within a research-focused environment as the Telematica Instituut. I would especially like to thank my supervisors; Johan Koolwaaij, Martin Wibbels and Aart van Halteren for their support during the assignment. I enjoyed our (two)weekly meetings and appreciated your remarks and suggestions. Moreover, I would like to thank all the employees at the Telematica Instituut for contributing to an open, friendly and cooperative working environment. Looking back, I am certain that doing my bachelor assignment at the Telematica Instituut was the right decision. I hope you will feel the same. Enschede, 22nd of January 2005. Wouter Wiegmans - 7 - Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming - 8 - Wouter Wiegmans Location-based Gaming 1. Introduction Context awareness is the ability of computing devices or applications to detect and sense, interpret and respond to aspects of a user's local environment and the computing devices themselves. When this concept is applied to mobile gaming, aspects of the user’s environment can be brought into the game; the gaming application becomes aware of the physical location of the player to which it can respond. When alliances between players can be formed, players will have access to different levels of context information, e.g. opponents can only see the user’s location when they are within range, whereas allies have access to his location from anywhere and also to