Now where did I leave those players?

Today I had a meeting with Ben, my supporting teacher. Although he was generally pleased with the results I could show him, he was a bit worried about my focus on the project goal. To recap: my goal was to create a game that would encourage more communication between SL residents. In the last month this goal mutated into: creating a game that has a global presence and crosses over the region boundaries of SL. I probably let this happen because the second goal is of a technical nature, and therefore is a constant, which can be relied upon. I feel more comfortable with reluctant scripts than with reluctant people. But I’ll need to focus on those people anyway if I want to promote  an interaction between them.

New Game Design

After my MOCK exam I've been rethinking the game I'd like to create. The goal I had in mind was to create a game that crosses over several regions, in contrast to the current games found in SL that are bound to a very small and specific location. Now that physBall is finished I've finally had the time to assemble my ideas into a new design document. The new game has the work-in-progress title 'Beacon'. It involves people steering hovering lighthouses across the world to discover and claim hidden treasures. If you'd like to know more, look at the sidebar under 'Documentation'. You'll find a new link there that leads to the first design document for 'Beacon'.

physBall works!… and fails

Today I had another go at placing a number of physBall games in SL. Luckily it went a lot better this time. Not only did the objects stay where they were supposed to stay, I also got an immediate response from an eager resident. Because I was still present at the scene I was able to capture the events on video.

Elbereth's solution was quite ingenious. It took him about 10 minutes to get his ray-gun to work properly and then only a minute to get the ball to its destination. Unfortunately that's when disaster struck. While placing the ball in the ring Elbereth accidentally hit Mattias, who was standing nearby, making Mattias the last 'player' who 'touched' the ball. Because of that the game stated that Mattias had won the game while Elbereth had done all the work. I had to overrule the rules to give Elbereth the reward he deserved. (And I have to look into another way of assigning a winner. Disregarding the problem with accidental collisions, Elbereth had no need to physically touch the ball. This would have caused the ball to state that there was no valid winner at all.)

After these exciting events there are still 2 balls left to be found. I've made some pictures of their locations. Can you guess where they are based on the surroundings. Then get going and win yourself a prize!

physBall is live!

Well… it should be. But even now that it's working, after 2 weeks of messing around with Second Life scripts, I'm still having trouble with it. The problem is that I keep running into 'no entry', 'no scripts' and 'auto-return' restrictions. These rights are meant to protect SL residents from griefing by other users or out-of-control objects, but it also makes it nearly impossible for me to deploy my game on any piece of land other than my own. And the point of the game was just that; to confront people with a simple challenge that has them traveling the landscape and thinking of creative ways to get the ball to the goal.

I've put a post on the SL forum asking if people would be willing to at least allow me to install the goal (the static part of the game) on their land, so I have a starting point. As for the ball, after it's initial birth into the world there's no way to control it, other than occasionally respawning it if it goes missing due to restrictive rules.
This does limit what I could do with my bigger concept considerably. It turns out that having different objects communicate across long distances is quite difficult and not always reliable. The rights-based restrictions on certain plots of land make an even bigger mess of any design that tries to encompass a large virtual space.

Day-to-day Planning

Now that I've reconsidered my project goals and settled on a new game plan I've also taken a look at my planning. I updated the global planning with a more detailed list of tasks to be performed. I also created a detailed day-to-day planning, because time becomes ever more critical from this point onwards and I have to remind myself to stick to the plan.

Considering the amount of time I have left and the fact that I'm working alone (I tried to attract a SL scripter on the forums, but got no response.) it's very unlikely that I will deliver a completely finished product before the exams. Therefore I want to focus on the game design and the visual presentation first, as those are the things most easily understood by the exam committee.

I've reserved the best half of July for scripting game functionality, but considering my current skill level (It took me over 2 weeks to create a simple game like physBall. More on that in a later post.) I don't think I can create an airtight script within 3 weeks. And if necessary I'll give the presentation of the game design and the visual presentation of the game assets priority over a working demo. I could probably demo the game with a verbal explanation, some simple mock objects and manual manipulation.

Reconsidering my goals

My project goal will be to create a game that crosses the boundaries of SL regions. The existing games in SL are all very local, spreading across a single sim at most. This causes people to group together around those games in confined spaces. I’d like to encourage people to explore the virtual world while playing, seeing new sights and meeting new people in the process.

My thesis will run parallel to my project. I’ve been wondering what would be worthwhile to write about and connect well with my project. I’ve been reading ‘Synthetic Worlds’ from Edward Castronova lately. In this book he draws a connection between virtual worlds and economics, describing the similarities between real and virtual worlds.

I think I should do something similar, but from the perspective of gaming. I can write from my own experiences with virtual worlds and relate these to known game theory and models. I can compare SL to other virtual worlds. I can compare the SL residents to other on-line players. To conclude I can explore the best way in which the SL community can be approached in relation to games.

Testing the Field

I’ve come up with a ‘new’ game design to test the limits of what’s possible in Second Life and what people are willing to contribute themselves.
The game itself is too simple for words; There’s a (physical) ball at location A and a goal at location B. The person that manages to get the ball to location B will receive a reward in Linden Dollars. There’s nothing more to it.
With this simple game I’d like to test how easy it is to manipulate an object across several virtual regions and how creative people are in trying to move the ball forward.
If it takes to long for people to achieve anything I have some tools in mind which could help them get the ball from A to B. I’ll work on creating this game and the tools next week.

Oh yeah, I also joined a SL College. One of the SL residents intends to create an intensive building/scripting course running for several weeks. I thought it couldn’t hurt to sign up, get to know people and go create some random stuff, just for practice.

MOCK exam results

Yesterday afternoon I had my MOCK exam. It went better than I expected. My presentation came across loud and clear and the committee was very pleased with the documents (the ones under 'Documentation') I presented at the start of my presentation.

In general I got a POSITIVE recommendation, which means that if I continue along this path there's a high chance I'll pass the final exams. 

The greatest criticism I received was that my project goals and expectations didn't quite match with the actual delivered game concept at this stage. I do have a tendency to get overzealous in setting high goals for myself, only later considering whether I can really achieve those goals in a reasonable amount of time. Perhaps I should reconsider what I can actually make in the next 2 months and adjust my goals accordingly.
Another question I should consider is: "Why bother?"

• Why would people want to play this game?
• What does this game try to achieve?
• What's in it for me, exactly?

I have a general idea about all of these questions, but again I should consider if it's reasonable and if I REALLY want to make what I'm making.  Putting the answers to paper will also help.

So my next tasks are:

• Reconsidering my goals
• Testing the scope of SL, to make sure what's feasible to create within 2 months.
• Adjusting the game concept to better suit the goals.

MOCK exam

Next Monday afternoon I'm having my Mock exam presentation. The MOCK exam is a half-way evaluation of the project. I have to present my research, concept and progress to a committee, who will then do their best to tear my project to shreds.

Anyway, I've put my powerpoint presentation online under the 'Documentation' category. My apologies to any readers that aren't fluent in Dutch. Luckily it has a lot of pictures too.

Documents online

To the right of the page I've created a new category called Documentation. I've put my work-in-progress game design document and thesis underneath. I'll keep these documents updated as I"ll continue working on them.