thoughts...

DishWhere Lite

DishWhere Lite is projected to launch in the iPhone app store in June 2009. The light version will be available for free and will focus on establishments in New York City’s lower east side. I was hesitant to release the game with out the community integration, because with out the community much of the player motivation is lost. But in the end I think the feedback gained from a single player experience will be more valuable. I’m thinking it may be wise to frame it as a tool rather than a game though. By framing it as a tool people don’t have expectations of a game system being in place with a proper win state and motivation.

CHINA!

Looks like DishWhere is going to have an opportunity to be tested in China this summer while I’m co-teaching a four week course in Beijing and Shanghai with Parsons. The curriculum is focused on an input, process, output model of creation and collabortion.  DishWhere will be used as  a media collection tool for a larger project, culminating as an installation in the EArts Shanghai arts festival.

Civilian playtest #1

We tested Civilian as a paper prototype today. (dave.parsons.edu/courses/course/view.php?id=5) Feedback:

challenge matrix

A link to the challenge matrix for ChowLocate. Still very early in development

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=ptV8flik9DGEpqP9DZl9hOg

Game Doc v1

Off The Menu – Game Document

•    Game is played on an iPhone with an application that must be downloaded.
•    There is no time limit on the game.
•    Players earn points by visiting Hot Spots, which are designated restaurants and food establishments, and completing challenges, interviews, and questions. Point values vary based on difficulty.
•    Players can also earn points by creating new Hot Spots and accompanying challenges
•    The players have a map of the Hot Spots on their phone, but will also receive alert messages, similar to a text message, when they are near a Hot Spot. This allows players to play deliberately or unintentionally (casually.)
•     Intended to be a single person game, but could be played by a group of people acting as a team.

Learning Goals

•    Level 1: Awareness of location and significance of restaurants/establishments. GPS triggered brief history or intro when a challenge is accepted on-site.
•    Level 2: Engagement. Interaction through challenges, on-site learning from the people and place. Techniques for approaching unfamiliar people. New ways to explore an environment.
•    Level 3: The role of the restaurants/establishments in the neighborhood, thus a better understanding of the neighborhood. When challenge is complete suggest Hot Spots that are near-by or related.
•    Level 4: Player as designer. Through the user generated content of Hot Spots players take another level of learning through the creation and feedback.


Website

•    Media collected from challenges is archived online
•    Players can blog about specific experiences and interviews
•    Showcase leader boards of overall game
•    Show Hot Spot ownership
•    Players can decided if they want their stats to be public or private
•    Players can check their progress in the game and the progress of others
•    Create new Hot Spots through a form like interface, precedents whrrl.com, wikibivouac.org


User Experience – Unintentional, push

•    The application is always running in the background of their phone.
•    The user is reliant on GPS to receive updates at unanticipated times of the day.
•    As the player travels about the city they receive a message when they are near a Hot Spot
•    The player can choose to ignore the message and ask to be remind at a later time or accept it and seek out a challenge
•    If challenges are completed the user can upload or blog results on the spot or wait until later, possibly at a computer terminal
•    Possibly used by tourists to point out significant establishments while traversing the city


User Experience – Intentional, pull

•    The application map is used to seek out Hot Spots in a specific area.
•    Possibly played when the player has a few minutes of free time, maybe waiting for someone, or when the player is deliberately looking for a place to eat
•    The GPS is still used to verify that the user has visited the Hot Spot, but the user is not reliant on it to find them.
•    The user can manually request challenges or wait for the application to suggest based on location
•    If challenges are completed the user can upload or blog results on the spot or wait until later, possibly at a computer terminal
•    Can see this scenario of the game being played by multiple people acting together
•    Possibly used by tourists as guided food tour


Creating New Hot Spots

•    Roughly based on a Parking Wars mechanic of owning a spot and putting time limit on ownership
•    To help populate the database with Hot Spots, players can earn points by creating spots, when a player creates a new spot (i.e. is the first at the location) they own the spot
•    Spots can only be owned for 30 days, after 30 days, option 1: the owner needs to change the challenges associated with the spot to retain ownership, option 2: the spot becomes open for someone else to grab
•    The owner of a spot receives points for each visitor to their spot, thus making it more valuable to own more popular places and create enjoyable challenges at the site
•    Need a feedback model to encourage good challenges and learning on both sides



Challenges (method of archiving/proving)

•    Challenges would vary from 5 – 15 minutes challenges and points would be awarded accordingly
•    Try the food (photo)
•    Interview (blog post summarizing the exchange)
•    Find the answer to a question in a physical place (photo, fill-in-the-blank)
•    Find the answer to a question from a person (blog)
•    Collection (photo)

what's in a name?

What to name my app. After reading a very useful article on Mashable (http://mashable.com/2009/02/21/how-to-build-an-iphone-app/) on mobile development, I’ve been thinking more about the name of my game. I’m currently using “Off the Menu” but I’m not in love with it. Here’s my simple criteria for naming:

1. one or two words

2. have some blantant reference to food

3. like the idea that it can be made into a verb (i.e. googling.)

(4. open domain name, though not a priority at this point)

Here’s some brainstorming on the topic, PS - I am not good at naming things:

Off The Menu

dishWhere

chewtopia

eat@, eat.at

Grub Hub

Urban Fork (not serious)

Fooducate (not sure if I want to reference learning)

GPSavory (good play on words, but not catchy)

Food Finds (blah)

The Wondering Foodie (I like the sentiment, not a good name, good blog name maybe)

Edible Adventure (kind of reminds me of edible underwear)

City Eats

Sidewalk Foodie

Curious Cuisine

Chow Locate

Chow Challenge

Curb Appeal

Oregano Trail

Top Banana

Quick Bites

Peer Review Abstract

Off the Menu is a big urban game for the adventurous foodie. The game invites people to explore new restaurants and food shops by completing and creating challenges that give players insider information about restaurants and shops around the city.

The game is played with an iPhone and makes use of the GPS functionality to track the players movements as they travel around the city. The game is constantly running in the background of the phone and only surfaces when the player is near one of the designated restaurants or shops, or “hot spots” as they’re referred to in the game. When near a “hot spot” the player receives a message that asks them to engage with the site through a challenge. Challenges can range from trying something on the menu to chatting with an employee to find the answer to a question. Players earn points by documenting the completion of their challenge through uploading photos, videos, or blogging on the Off the Menu web community. Players can also earn points by adding new hot spots to the game.

The primary research goal is to better understand how situated learning can be facilitated through embodied play and urban gaming. There are multiple levels of learning explored through the game: basic topic knowledge, player as designer, public/social interaction, cultural and neighborhood nuances. Off the Menu also explores new mechanics in urban gaming as well as the integration of real world and web presence.

play-test 10.31

to do:

• create a pre and post assessment questionaire
• find a laser printer for Tuesday
• set up the printing flow for volunteers
• masking tape and sticky tack

feedback:

1.What was the most fun part of the game?

• getting updates, made us more frantic
• challenges made us feel silly (chalk outlines, rioting)
• getting people to do things
• running around, racing other teams to locations
• running into other teams
• time constraints, competition between groups
• like an educational amazing race
• people’s reactions to trying to ask them questions
• buying pens from the store
• finding locations

2. What are three things you learned from this game?

• Tirangle Fire
• no protesting in Washington Square
• Writing with chalk is fun
• using my phone
• dealing with crashed server
• the riots and where they were
• NYC people can be extremely rude
• deaths by Washington Park
• 146 people died in the Shirtwaist fires
• New Yorkers aren’t very open to interviews
• history of the Stonewall Riot
• number of deaths in the Shirtwaist fire
• no one in a Union office wants to commit to answering simple questions
• unity for Barak will win the ware
• didn’t learn anything
• Stonewall Riots about gay rights, never knew those kids of protest happened so long ago
• 146 people died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
• no rallying or performing in Washington Sq Par

3. Do you have any suggestions for improvements?

• scoring for task, unbalanced
• some of the photos were hard to match up
• include a fact about the different topics in domestic violence fact, Cindy Sherman fact
• bigger maps of a key
• heave teams read through instructions before taking off
• more frequent status updates
• working materials, pen was out of ink
• more options for tasks
• fix the damn server
• quicker phone responses

4. Were the rules clear? If not, what was confusing?

• yes
• yes, very clear
• yes, but we were confused initially because were trying to read while on the go
• for the most part, missed the bonus cards
• yes
• it was unclear how to send off a completed task to the game master
• player to game master mechanic could use work
• directions on contacting seemed repetitive

5. Would you recommend this game to a friend?

• yes - 5
• hell no
• i’d recommend it to  younger age group, like a school group who would be more apt to learn