Graphic courtesy Northwestern University
Graphically Advanced Multiplayer Educational Simulations
It's a MUD/MOO... it's educational... it's multimedia... it's real-time...
It's all that, and more!
The GAMES Project
The GAMES Project is for creating multiplayer educational
simulated worlds.
By putting a student in a world that
sufficiently models the domain you are trying to teach,
- as the student learns about that world,
- they learn about the domain.
In order for
this to work, the simulated world must be predictable, compelling/engaging, reactive
to the students actions, and sensitive to the student's needs. The simulated world is:
- Predictable
- because it make sense in terms of the real world.
- Compelling
- because a comic-like graphical interface (the MOOPort) re-presents the world.
- Reactive
- because the game is built on an existing architecture for realtime multiplayer games (MUDs), using the most flexible implementation (Pavel Curtis's MOO, from Xerox PARC).
- Sensitive
- because there is a Proactive Tutor in the simulated world, which watches the players' actions and informs them when they do something questionable.
This functionality is all supported by a library called GameCore. One game
has been implemented using GameCore so far:
Sell.
GameCore is a library of portable C++ objects for supporting the fundamental
functionality of the every game the GAMES project might want to produce.
Currently those functions are:
With this library, we hope to build a multitude of future games, including
GameBuilder.
Sell is the first game we created using GameCore technology.
It is an town with an economic simulation where players own a store and sell
products to a robotic consumer population. You can get more information on
Sell by visiting the Sell Home Page.
The Spatial Metaphor is basically a way of mapping a domain (and, consequently,
its interface) onto the basic spatial elements of a MUD. GameCore accomplishes
this using the MOOPort, a visual item in every GAMES Project game that is a
viewport into the MOO running the game server. In it, objects are represented
by MOOLogos. These logos can be manipulated in a way that makes sense to the
domain. For example, in Sell, your merchandise and your store employee are
MOOLogos. MOOExits are special MOOLogos that allow you to move from one room
to the other by double-clicking on them. For more information, read the MOOPort Implementation Spec.
A problem that we saw early on with simulations was that, like the real world,
players could foul things up and not know why. Unlike the real world, though,
all the information for the simulation is readily available, and can be used
to generate explanations or warnings. That is what the Proactive Tutor is
designed to do. The Tutor has a set of rules which are used to determine if
the player is doing something which seems unwise or uninformed. These rules are
based on the design and information in the model, and are fired by user actions.
When a rule fires, the client program gets notified, and the player sees the
tutor pop up and warn them (via QuickTime). When they see this warning, they
can ask for more information (bringing them to the Advice Network), or they
can ignore it and carry on at their own risk. The idea is that the Proactive
Tutor is that guy looking over your shoulder as you play. He should be there
when you need him, but when you know what you're doing (or when you think you
know), you can ignore him.
The Advice Network is a system of questions and answers
that are interconnected and designed to help you play the game. You may enter the system through a context sensitive question and then stay in it for as long as you want by asking as
many follow-up questions as you desire.
GAMES Project Members:
GAMES Documents:
Last modified:
Tue Sep 24 17:31:59 CDT 1996
Send comments to:
slator@badlands.nodak.edu