Matt Adams - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Matt Adams
mrl.nott.ac.uk
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY City as Theatre (CAT) is one of five workpackages called “showcases” within IPe... more EXECUTIVE SUMMARY City as Theatre (CAT) is one of five workpackages called “showcases” within IPerG that demonstrate and study new examples of pervasive games. The CAT showcase is exploring artistled pervasive games, drawing on the talents of artists to create novel and compelling experiences that offer visions of how more mainstream games might be in the future. This has involved developing a prototype public performance called Day of the Figurines, a slow pervasive game in the form of a massivelymultiplayer ...
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2013
Real-time participatory experiences such as multiplayer games, on-line role-play and performances... more Real-time participatory experiences such as multiplayer games, on-line role-play and performances require orchestrating; an on-going process of managing participants' activities from behind the scenes. We describe how orchestration was achieved in three contrasting experiences: an on-line role-play called Avatar Farm, a touring mixed reality performance called Desert Rain, and a mobile mixed reality game called Can You See Me Now?. We show how each adopted a different approach to orchestration according to its ...
Proceedings of the Ubi- …, 2002
1 The Mixed Reality Laboratory, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK {rma, mdf, ... more 1 The Mixed Reality Laboratory, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK {rma, mdf, axc, sdb, tah, sxi, imt}@cs.nott.ac.uk 2 Blast Theory, Unit 43a Regent Studios 8, Andrews Road London E8 4QN {nick, matt, ju, jamie}@blasttheory.co.uk ... Abstract. Can You See ...
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2006
We present a study of a mobile mixed reality game called Can You See Me Now? in which online play... more We present a study of a mobile mixed reality game called Can You See Me Now? in which online players are chased through a virtual model of a city by 'runners' (professional performers equipped with GPS and WiFi technologies) who have to run through the actual city streets in order to catch the players. We present an ethnographic study of the game as it toured through two different cities and draws upon video recordings of online players, runners, technical support crew, and also on system logs of text communication. Our study reveals the diverse ways in which online players experienced the uncertainties inherent in GPS and WiFi, including being mostly unaware of them, but sometimes seeing them as problems, or treating the as a designed feature of the game, and even occasionally exploiting them within gameplay. In contrast, the runners and technical crew were fully aware of these uncertainties and continually battled against them through an ongoing and distributed process of orchestration. As a result, we encourage designers to deal with such uncertainties as a fundamental characteristic of location-based experiences rather than treating them as exceptions or bugs that might be ironed out in the future. We argue that designers should explicitly consider four potential states of being of a mobile participant: connected and tracked, connected but not tracked, tracked but not connected, and neither connected nor tracked. We then introduce five strategies that might be used to deal with uncertainty in these different states for different kinds of participant: remove it, hide it, manage it, reveal it, and exploit it. Finally, we present proposals for new orchestration interfaces that reveal the 'seams' in the underlying technical infrastructure by visualizing the recent performance of GPS and WiFi and predicting the likely future performance of GPS.
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2011
An ethnographic study reveals how professional artists created a spectator interface for the inte... more An ethnographic study reveals how professional artists created a spectator interface for the interactive game Day of the Figurines, designing the size, shape, height and materials of two tabletop interfaces before carefully arranging them in a local setting. We also show how participants experienced this interface. We consider how the artists worked with a multi-scale notion of interactional trajectory that
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Journal , Oct 1, 2011
Touring location-based experiences is challenging, as both content and underlying location servic... more Touring location-based experiences is challenging, as both content and underlying location services must be adapted to each new setting. A study of a touring performance called Rider Spoke as it visited three different cities reveals how professional artists developed a novel approach to these challenges in which users drove the co-evolution of content and the underlying location service as they explored each new city. We show how the artists iteratively developed filtering, survey, visualization, and simulation tools and processes to enable them to tune the experience to the local characteristics of each city. Our study reveals how by paying attention to both content and infrastructure issues in tandem, the artists were able to create a powerful user experience that has since toured to many different cities.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2007
Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is... more Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is driven by a strong scripted narrative that is combined with various interactive elements to create a shared experience. It is also a slow game, unfolding over twenty four days of its players' lives, requiring them to send and receive only a few messages each day. Our experience of staging multiple performances of DoF to more than seven hundred players revealed key issues concerning the design and experience of time in such a pervasive game. Most players engaged episodically, raising issues of how to manage reengagement with the game and sustain social relationships. Our experience has led us to propose a framework for how to design time in shared interactive narratives in which five distinct layers of time -story time, plot time, schedule time, interaction time and perceived time -are mapped onto one another.
International Conference on Virtual Storytelling, 2007
Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is... more Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is driven by a strong scripted narrative that is combined with various interactive elements to create a shared experience. It is also a slow game, unfolding over twenty four days of its players' lives, requiring them to send and receive only a few messages each day. Our experience of staging multiple performances of DoF to more than seven hundred players revealed key issues concerning the design and experience of time in such a pervasive game. Most players engaged episodically, raising issues of how to manage reengagement with the game and sustain social relationships. Our experience has led us to propose a framework for how to design time in shared interactive narratives in which five distinct layers of time -story time, plot time, schedule time, interaction time and perceived time -are mapped onto one another.
Street players purchase a ticket for an experience that will last for up to an hour. On arrival a... more Street players purchase a ticket for an experience that will last for up to an hour. On arrival at the venue they hand over all of their personal possessions including bags, wallets, mobile phones and keys, in exchange for a mobile phone, a ritual that is intended to increase their sense of anticipation, vulnerability, dependence on the game, and to increase susceptibility to viewing the city in a different light. A member of the front-of-house staff then briefs them that their goal is to find Frank and explains how to use the mobile phone to play the game. They are then led out of the building and into the game. This first phase of game takes place in the relatively safe environment of a university campus. Their mobile phone displays a map of the surrounding area and their first task is to find a red marker on this map and get to the physical location that it indicates. The red marker is on the edge of the campus, leading into the centre of the city. As the street player walks through the campus, they receive regular text messages on their phone in the voice of the game, describing a relationship with Frank and how they need help from the player to find him. For example:
is a text messaging pervasive game for mobile phones that is designed to be slow and interwoven w... more is a text messaging pervasive game for mobile phones that is designed to be slow and interwoven with the patterns of players' daily lives over a month of play. We describe the design and realisation of DoF showing how it is driven by a strong narrative that is crafted from destinations, times and events and yet supports interactivity through chat, the use of objects, health and dilemmas, all of which can be combined into more complex missions. Feedback from a deployment at Singapore that was played by 141 paying players was positive, with 71% of 24 questionnaire respondents saying they would play again and suggests that this format has potential to broaden the demographic for computer games.
Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '12, 2012
This paper uses a detailed ethnographic study of an ambulatory experience, where participants wer... more This paper uses a detailed ethnographic study of an ambulatory experience, where participants were invited to explore the perspective of two notorious terrorists, in order to discuss the nature of instruction-giving and, most particularly, the methodical ways in which such instructions are complied with. Four distinct layers of compliance are identified, as are three different kinds of accountability, all of which stand potentially at odds with one another. The paper examines the tensions created by this, tensions that are further aggravated by instructions usually being delivered down a thin channel, with considerable surrounding contextual complexity and little opportunity for repair, and uncovers some core challenges for future design in relation to the provision of instructions for a range of possible activities.
Proceedings of the conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '03, 2003
Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants... more Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants on the city streets. In the first, the players were online and professional performers were on the streets. The second reversed this relationship. Analysis of these ...
Proceedings of the conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '03, 2003
Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants... more Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants on the city streets. In the first, the players were online and professional performers were on the streets. The second reversed this relationship. Analysis of these ...
Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '04, 2004
Successfully staging a mixed reality game in which online players are chased through a virtual ci... more Successfully staging a mixed reality game in which online players are chased through a virtual city by runners located in the real world requires extensive orchestration work. An ethnographic study shows how this concerted achievement extends beyond the control room to the runners on the street. This, in turn, suggests the need to 'decentralize' orchestration and develop support for collaboration 'on the ground'. The study leads to design proposals for orchestration interfaces for mobile experiences that augment situational awareness and surreptitious monitoring among mobile participants and support troubleshooting in situations where participants are disconnected or are unable to access positioning systems such as GPS.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004
The use of positioning systems is an important but problematic aspect of 'context aware' applicat... more The use of positioning systems is an important but problematic aspect of 'context aware' applications. Through focusing on location-based games, we introduce the approach of self-reported positioning in which players explicitly and implicitly reveal their positions by manipulating electronic maps. A study of a game that piloted this approach demonstrates that self-reported positioning can be a reliable low-tech alternative to automated systems such as GPS. We contrast the strategies used by humans to generate position updatesreporting at landmarks and junctions and ahead and behind themselves -with automated approaches, drawing out implications for how we think of positioning error and design positioning systems.
Proceedings of the 2007 conference on Designing for User eXperiences - DUX '07, 2007
This study examines the development of a mobile phone-based pervasive game that related its user'... more This study examines the development of a mobile phone-based pervasive game that related its user's environmental footprint. It discusses the design challenges, development and evaluation of the prototype game in order to identify the key strategies and mechanisms that relate to the production of pervasive systems for mass participation. Designing the user experience for such systems is particularly difficult, as the game had to educate and entertain without patronizing or preaching to the user. A prototype system was developed and trialed in order to identify and understand how users related to the experience and how the game may be further developed. We found that character-led tailored physical activities were generally found to be the most enjoyable, while players wanted more interaction with each other and more score-based content. Creating interdependent question sets and orchestrating the game arduous process. In the future a fully automated system will be key to its use.
We report on task 7b.1, the eRENA workshop on pushing mixed reality boundaries. We introduce the ... more We report on task 7b.1, the eRENA workshop on pushing mixed reality boundaries. We introduce the concept of a mixed reality boundary that distinguishes our approach to mixed reality from other approaches such as augmented reality and augmented virtuality. We then review the history of boundaries in theatre in order to raise new requirements for mixed reality boundaries.
Conference of the Digital Games Research Association, 2003
We describe Uncle Roy All Around You, a mixture of game and theatre that took place in central Lo... more We describe Uncle Roy All Around You, a mixture of game and theatre that took place in central London in late May and early June of 2003. Street players, equipped with handheld computers and wireless networking, journeyed through the streets of the city in search of an elusive character called Uncle Roy, while online players journeyed through a parallel 3D model of the city, were able to track their progress and could communicate with them in order to help or hinder them. We describe how Uncle Roy All Around You mixed elements of preprogrammed game content with live performance and behind the scenes orchestration to create a compelling experience, especially for street players. We suggest that finding ways to scale this approach to support larger numbers of participants is an important challenge for future research.
mrl.nott.ac.uk
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY City as Theatre (CAT) is one of five workpackages called “showcases” within IPe... more EXECUTIVE SUMMARY City as Theatre (CAT) is one of five workpackages called “showcases” within IPerG that demonstrate and study new examples of pervasive games. The CAT showcase is exploring artistled pervasive games, drawing on the talents of artists to create novel and compelling experiences that offer visions of how more mainstream games might be in the future. This has involved developing a prototype public performance called Day of the Figurines, a slow pervasive game in the form of a massivelymultiplayer ...
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2013
Real-time participatory experiences such as multiplayer games, on-line role-play and performances... more Real-time participatory experiences such as multiplayer games, on-line role-play and performances require orchestrating; an on-going process of managing participants' activities from behind the scenes. We describe how orchestration was achieved in three contrasting experiences: an on-line role-play called Avatar Farm, a touring mixed reality performance called Desert Rain, and a mobile mixed reality game called Can You See Me Now?. We show how each adopted a different approach to orchestration according to its ...
Proceedings of the Ubi- …, 2002
1 The Mixed Reality Laboratory, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK {rma, mdf, ... more 1 The Mixed Reality Laboratory, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK {rma, mdf, axc, sdb, tah, sxi, imt}@cs.nott.ac.uk 2 Blast Theory, Unit 43a Regent Studios 8, Andrews Road London E8 4QN {nick, matt, ju, jamie}@blasttheory.co.uk ... Abstract. Can You See ...
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2006
We present a study of a mobile mixed reality game called Can You See Me Now? in which online play... more We present a study of a mobile mixed reality game called Can You See Me Now? in which online players are chased through a virtual model of a city by 'runners' (professional performers equipped with GPS and WiFi technologies) who have to run through the actual city streets in order to catch the players. We present an ethnographic study of the game as it toured through two different cities and draws upon video recordings of online players, runners, technical support crew, and also on system logs of text communication. Our study reveals the diverse ways in which online players experienced the uncertainties inherent in GPS and WiFi, including being mostly unaware of them, but sometimes seeing them as problems, or treating the as a designed feature of the game, and even occasionally exploiting them within gameplay. In contrast, the runners and technical crew were fully aware of these uncertainties and continually battled against them through an ongoing and distributed process of orchestration. As a result, we encourage designers to deal with such uncertainties as a fundamental characteristic of location-based experiences rather than treating them as exceptions or bugs that might be ironed out in the future. We argue that designers should explicitly consider four potential states of being of a mobile participant: connected and tracked, connected but not tracked, tracked but not connected, and neither connected nor tracked. We then introduce five strategies that might be used to deal with uncertainty in these different states for different kinds of participant: remove it, hide it, manage it, reveal it, and exploit it. Finally, we present proposals for new orchestration interfaces that reveal the 'seams' in the underlying technical infrastructure by visualizing the recent performance of GPS and WiFi and predicting the likely future performance of GPS.
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2011
An ethnographic study reveals how professional artists created a spectator interface for the inte... more An ethnographic study reveals how professional artists created a spectator interface for the interactive game Day of the Figurines, designing the size, shape, height and materials of two tabletop interfaces before carefully arranging them in a local setting. We also show how participants experienced this interface. We consider how the artists worked with a multi-scale notion of interactional trajectory that
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Journal , Oct 1, 2011
Touring location-based experiences is challenging, as both content and underlying location servic... more Touring location-based experiences is challenging, as both content and underlying location services must be adapted to each new setting. A study of a touring performance called Rider Spoke as it visited three different cities reveals how professional artists developed a novel approach to these challenges in which users drove the co-evolution of content and the underlying location service as they explored each new city. We show how the artists iteratively developed filtering, survey, visualization, and simulation tools and processes to enable them to tune the experience to the local characteristics of each city. Our study reveals how by paying attention to both content and infrastructure issues in tandem, the artists were able to create a powerful user experience that has since toured to many different cities.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2007
Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is... more Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is driven by a strong scripted narrative that is combined with various interactive elements to create a shared experience. It is also a slow game, unfolding over twenty four days of its players' lives, requiring them to send and receive only a few messages each day. Our experience of staging multiple performances of DoF to more than seven hundred players revealed key issues concerning the design and experience of time in such a pervasive game. Most players engaged episodically, raising issues of how to manage reengagement with the game and sustain social relationships. Our experience has led us to propose a framework for how to design time in shared interactive narratives in which five distinct layers of time -story time, plot time, schedule time, interaction time and perceived time -are mapped onto one another.
International Conference on Virtual Storytelling, 2007
Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is... more Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a pervasive game for mobile phones that uses text messaging. DoF is driven by a strong scripted narrative that is combined with various interactive elements to create a shared experience. It is also a slow game, unfolding over twenty four days of its players' lives, requiring them to send and receive only a few messages each day. Our experience of staging multiple performances of DoF to more than seven hundred players revealed key issues concerning the design and experience of time in such a pervasive game. Most players engaged episodically, raising issues of how to manage reengagement with the game and sustain social relationships. Our experience has led us to propose a framework for how to design time in shared interactive narratives in which five distinct layers of time -story time, plot time, schedule time, interaction time and perceived time -are mapped onto one another.
Street players purchase a ticket for an experience that will last for up to an hour. On arrival a... more Street players purchase a ticket for an experience that will last for up to an hour. On arrival at the venue they hand over all of their personal possessions including bags, wallets, mobile phones and keys, in exchange for a mobile phone, a ritual that is intended to increase their sense of anticipation, vulnerability, dependence on the game, and to increase susceptibility to viewing the city in a different light. A member of the front-of-house staff then briefs them that their goal is to find Frank and explains how to use the mobile phone to play the game. They are then led out of the building and into the game. This first phase of game takes place in the relatively safe environment of a university campus. Their mobile phone displays a map of the surrounding area and their first task is to find a red marker on this map and get to the physical location that it indicates. The red marker is on the edge of the campus, leading into the centre of the city. As the street player walks through the campus, they receive regular text messages on their phone in the voice of the game, describing a relationship with Frank and how they need help from the player to find him. For example:
is a text messaging pervasive game for mobile phones that is designed to be slow and interwoven w... more is a text messaging pervasive game for mobile phones that is designed to be slow and interwoven with the patterns of players' daily lives over a month of play. We describe the design and realisation of DoF showing how it is driven by a strong narrative that is crafted from destinations, times and events and yet supports interactivity through chat, the use of objects, health and dilemmas, all of which can be combined into more complex missions. Feedback from a deployment at Singapore that was played by 141 paying players was positive, with 71% of 24 questionnaire respondents saying they would play again and suggests that this format has potential to broaden the demographic for computer games.
Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '12, 2012
This paper uses a detailed ethnographic study of an ambulatory experience, where participants wer... more This paper uses a detailed ethnographic study of an ambulatory experience, where participants were invited to explore the perspective of two notorious terrorists, in order to discuss the nature of instruction-giving and, most particularly, the methodical ways in which such instructions are complied with. Four distinct layers of compliance are identified, as are three different kinds of accountability, all of which stand potentially at odds with one another. The paper examines the tensions created by this, tensions that are further aggravated by instructions usually being delivered down a thin channel, with considerable surrounding contextual complexity and little opportunity for repair, and uncovers some core challenges for future design in relation to the provision of instructions for a range of possible activities.
Proceedings of the conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '03, 2003
Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants... more Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants on the city streets. In the first, the players were online and professional performers were on the streets. The second reversed this relationship. Analysis of these ...
Proceedings of the conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '03, 2003
Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants... more Abstract We describe two games in which online participants collaborated with mobile participants on the city streets. In the first, the players were online and professional performers were on the streets. The second reversed this relationship. Analysis of these ...
Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Human factors in computing systems - CHI '04, 2004
Successfully staging a mixed reality game in which online players are chased through a virtual ci... more Successfully staging a mixed reality game in which online players are chased through a virtual city by runners located in the real world requires extensive orchestration work. An ethnographic study shows how this concerted achievement extends beyond the control room to the runners on the street. This, in turn, suggests the need to 'decentralize' orchestration and develop support for collaboration 'on the ground'. The study leads to design proposals for orchestration interfaces for mobile experiences that augment situational awareness and surreptitious monitoring among mobile participants and support troubleshooting in situations where participants are disconnected or are unable to access positioning systems such as GPS.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004
The use of positioning systems is an important but problematic aspect of 'context aware' applicat... more The use of positioning systems is an important but problematic aspect of 'context aware' applications. Through focusing on location-based games, we introduce the approach of self-reported positioning in which players explicitly and implicitly reveal their positions by manipulating electronic maps. A study of a game that piloted this approach demonstrates that self-reported positioning can be a reliable low-tech alternative to automated systems such as GPS. We contrast the strategies used by humans to generate position updatesreporting at landmarks and junctions and ahead and behind themselves -with automated approaches, drawing out implications for how we think of positioning error and design positioning systems.
Proceedings of the 2007 conference on Designing for User eXperiences - DUX '07, 2007
This study examines the development of a mobile phone-based pervasive game that related its user'... more This study examines the development of a mobile phone-based pervasive game that related its user's environmental footprint. It discusses the design challenges, development and evaluation of the prototype game in order to identify the key strategies and mechanisms that relate to the production of pervasive systems for mass participation. Designing the user experience for such systems is particularly difficult, as the game had to educate and entertain without patronizing or preaching to the user. A prototype system was developed and trialed in order to identify and understand how users related to the experience and how the game may be further developed. We found that character-led tailored physical activities were generally found to be the most enjoyable, while players wanted more interaction with each other and more score-based content. Creating interdependent question sets and orchestrating the game arduous process. In the future a fully automated system will be key to its use.
We report on task 7b.1, the eRENA workshop on pushing mixed reality boundaries. We introduce the ... more We report on task 7b.1, the eRENA workshop on pushing mixed reality boundaries. We introduce the concept of a mixed reality boundary that distinguishes our approach to mixed reality from other approaches such as augmented reality and augmented virtuality. We then review the history of boundaries in theatre in order to raise new requirements for mixed reality boundaries.
Conference of the Digital Games Research Association, 2003
We describe Uncle Roy All Around You, a mixture of game and theatre that took place in central Lo... more We describe Uncle Roy All Around You, a mixture of game and theatre that took place in central London in late May and early June of 2003. Street players, equipped with handheld computers and wireless networking, journeyed through the streets of the city in search of an elusive character called Uncle Roy, while online players journeyed through a parallel 3D model of the city, were able to track their progress and could communicate with them in order to help or hinder them. We describe how Uncle Roy All Around You mixed elements of preprogrammed game content with live performance and behind the scenes orchestration to create a compelling experience, especially for street players. We suggest that finding ways to scale this approach to support larger numbers of participants is an important challenge for future research.