Official Proposal

Our initial idea for this project was to make a real-life version of the game Pac-man. Instead of the traditional game controls with a keyboard, the players of the game will move around in the physical space in order to move their Pac-Man on screen. This would be achieved by having a GPS-capable cellphone with the game client and a server side computer that will process the incoming GPS data. Upon further research, we learned that this idea had in fact been done fairly recently, and set out to find another project idea.

After we realized that our Pac-Man idea wouldn’t work, we decided to try another style of game that would offer more of a challenge. The targeted community that will benefit from our project include fellow students who are also interested in integrating mobile phone technology (apps and GPS system) with server side information processing, and students who are interested in game design for phones. This will bring greater mobility in future app/game designs.

The other group community that would benefit from this project would be the incoming freshmen of Sixth College. This project will allow them to examine how technological and artistic developments can work together and consequently affect our lives today.

For this project, we plan to make the game Missile Command “come to life”. In the game, the player is required to defend six cities from oncoming missiles. These missiles will be controlled by a user on a computer using some kind of game interface. (Processing?) The user’s mouse clicks will determine when and where the missiles are raining down from with limitations on the amount of missiles that can be sent. The other half of the game will take place in a physical space. Six people using GPS-capable cell phones will act as the defending cities. They will be required to get to the designated co-ordinates and detonate at the correct time to destroy the virtual missiles. This will be achieved using the cellphones with the game client and a server side computer to process the incoming GPS data and relay the missile information provided by the game interface.

List of responsibilities/apps needed for this project:
1. Game client for phone, done in J2ME, that uses GPS signals to defend the cities.
2. Server, process the GPS coordinates and sends the information to both the display and cellphone client
3. Game interface. Where the user commands the missiles from and the game is displayed.