ARHunter: A Computer-enhanced Whack-A-Mole Game Environment
ARHunter is a computer-enhanced multi-player whack-a-mole game. It realizes an immersive entertainment environment combined with gestural input and location recognition technologies, which aims at increasing the level of players' engagement and excitement.
ARHunter Overview
Fig 1. ARHunter Overview (Using a Projector)
Fig 1 shows the system overview of ARHunter. In ARHunter, we use the technologies originally developed for Toss-It. Each player holds a gesture recognition device (in this paper, we call it a hammer). The hammer embeds inertial sensors and infrared (IR) LEDs. Each hammer is connected to a laptop computer which recognizes each player's actions through the outputs of the inertial sensors. The laptop computer is connected to a server computer through a wireless LAN. Although each player places his laptop computer at a fixed position in the current setting, he can carry it on his shoulder, in order to make the cable between his hammer and computer more unobtrusive while playing ARHunter. A stereo camera is further installed to the ceiling so that it captures IR LEDs on each player's hammer to identify his location. The server computer generates monsters and visualizes them on a floor through an LCD projector installed to a ceiling, or on a plasma display placed on a table. The software running on the server makes monsters move around in a game arena. When a player conducts an action (swing vertically or horizontally) with his hammer, his laptop computer recognizes the action and sends its data to the server computer. The server computer then judges whether the player strikes a monster successfully based on his action, position and orientation, and monsters' positions. |
How to play ARHunter?
Fig 2. ARHunter in play
A player can strike a virtual monster by vertically swinging his hammer. When he correctly strikes a monster, the monster is killed. A player can sweep monsters away from the game arena by horizontally swinging his hammer. The time required for a swept-away monster to return to the game arena depends on how strongly and accurately a player has swept them away. When a player tries to strike or sweep monsters, he brings his hammer close to them. ARHunter provides players with visual and auditory feedback to let them know if they have successfully struck or swept monsters away. In the current implementation of ARHunter, two players can play a game at the same time. We prepared two different modes: the match-up mode for competitive play and the tag-team mode for collaborative play, respectively.
In the match-up mode, each player is required to annihilate his monsters only. A player has to strike a monster with his hammer twice in order to exterminate it. If a player annihilates a monster of the other player by mistake, the total number of his monsters increases as a penalty. When a player approaches monsters, they escape from the player in order not to be exterminated. A player wins the game when he has annihilated all his enemy monsters in the game arena faster than the other player.
In the tag-team mode, players are required to annihilate the enemy monsters collaboratively. In this mode, monsters of different colors appear: Blue-colored monsters move slowly and die by being struck twice. Yellow-colored monsters move a little more quickly than blue-colored monsters, and die by being struck three times. Red-colored monsters, which are the strongest ones, move most quickly and die by being struck five times. The players win the game when players have annihilated all the enemy monsters in the game arena within a specified time-limit.
The time-limit is set to 100 seconds in both modes. If the time has run out, the game is regarded as a draw in the match-up mode and a lost in the tag-team mode. We prepared three stages for both modes. The time-limit is fixed through all three stages. When players advance to the next stage, the total number of the monsters increases; therefore, the difficulty of the games increases.
In the match-up mode, each player is required to annihilate his monsters only. A player has to strike a monster with his hammer twice in order to exterminate it. If a player annihilates a monster of the other player by mistake, the total number of his monsters increases as a penalty. When a player approaches monsters, they escape from the player in order not to be exterminated. A player wins the game when he has annihilated all his enemy monsters in the game arena faster than the other player.
In the tag-team mode, players are required to annihilate the enemy monsters collaboratively. In this mode, monsters of different colors appear: Blue-colored monsters move slowly and die by being struck twice. Yellow-colored monsters move a little more quickly than blue-colored monsters, and die by being struck three times. Red-colored monsters, which are the strongest ones, move most quickly and die by being struck five times. The players win the game when players have annihilated all the enemy monsters in the game arena within a specified time-limit.
The time-limit is set to 100 seconds in both modes. If the time has run out, the game is regarded as a draw in the match-up mode and a lost in the tag-team mode. We prepared three stages for both modes. The time-limit is fixed through all three stages. When players advance to the next stage, the total number of the monsters increases; therefore, the difficulty of the games increases.
Video
Publication
- Koji Yatani, Masanori Sugimoto@and Hiromichi Hashizume
"A Multiplayer Whack-A-Mole Game Using Gestural Input in a Location-Sensitive and Immersive Environment"
Extended Abstracts of International Conference on Entertainment Computing (ICEC 2005) pp. 9 -- 12, September 2005. - Koji Yatani, Masanori Sugimoto@and Hiromichi Hashizume
"ARHunter: A Multiplayer Game Using Gestural Input in a Location-Sensitive and Immersive Environment"
Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing, Entertainment and Games in the Seventh International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp 2005), September 2005.