How the games work
eMapps games operate in a similar way to other computer games. The game takes place in a territory pre-determined by the game designers, probably teachers. This could be in a local town, park or other geographical location. The game can be played in ‘real’ territory where the players actually go out into the local environment or virtually, where all actions take place within a computer simulation. In either case, it is played using the eMapps.com platform, provided to each participating school.
Note:- The word ‘avatar’ is used by the Virtual Reality and computer gaming community to mean a "representation of the user", a character selected to stand in for and represent a user-player in a computer game. It originated from Hindu philosophy where the word avatar commonly refers to the bodily manifestation of a higher being or God onto planet Earth: in other words, a representation of a God.
Handheld Devices are:
The game is played by teams of children. Each team has a ‘team manager’ working at a PC at ‘control base’, with players out in the field using handheld devices. There are several teams in any one game. Each team has their own ‘desktop’ - their view of the game platform - which is available on the team manager’s PC.
The teacher adopts the role of ‘game controller’, remaining at the home-base along with team managers. The game controller has access to each team’s desktop on the control monitor.
The game controller, the team managers, and the players in the field can all add objects to the desktop. The game controller is most likely to add clues and information (for use by the teams), the team manager may add solutions to clues (as evidence to the controller), and the players in the field will upload evidence of having achieved something.
Team managers use their team players in the field as ‘avatars’, guiding them according to information obtained or clues received. Information of this kind can be obtained by the team manager either directly to the desktop from the game controller, through the process of solving the clues or from an Internet search, etc. Sometimes that information is passed by the game controller to the team manager in response to the avatars having achieved something in the field and having provided evidence of that achievement by uploading something (a video or audio clip, a photograph) to the team desktop from their hand-held device.
Global Positioning Systems are used by team managers passing coordinates to the avatars and also by the avatars to provide location information for their uploaded video/audio/photo content so that the site can be located with a ‘pin’ on the vector map on the desktop.
Sometimes information or clues are given to the teams by ‘characters’ they meet in the field. The ‘characters’ the avatars ‘meet’ could be a pre-recorded video (or audio or text or photo) of the character, made available to the team manager on the desktop and transmitted by the manager to the avatars. The ‘characters’ are not necessarily real people and a physical meeting may not take place: this means that the message or clue given by that ‘character’ is consistent for all teams.
A video, audio, photo or other clue provided by the game controller to the desktop of each team might vary depending on the ‘solution’ or option chosen by that team. In this way the game may develop branches - i.e. alternative routes - the branch taken being determined by the option chosen or answer provided by each different team. Thus not all teams follow an identical path through the game. One path may be better than another: some paths may lead to a dead-end. Equally it may be that no path is better than another: they may all lead to the goal or result in a different way. It could also be that each path chosen leads to a different goal or result, all being equally valid.