OUseful Info

Live Data Gaming - Sharkrunners

Way back when, when I was still at school, one of the things that helped me decide to do an electronics undergrad was a document my Dad had brought back from work about some telemetry system or other for the waste water industry. The idea of live data was somehow compelling, although at that time there was no web, and no real access to real, live data, except via shortwave radio. (I seem to remember Maplin had a kit you could buy to grab the data from a radio set and display it on, err, a ZX81, probably!).

Things are so different now. More and more data is out there, more and more of it is public and more and more of it is live or near live: transport/travel data, Formula One live timing data, weather data, ship/vessel tracking, aircraft tracking, aircraft tracking with corresponding noise levels (!), loads of marine related data and a wealth of other geodata.

Some of the data has even been turned into persistent online games - that is, games where the game world persists even if aren't playing it at the time, as is the case in many online virtual worlds.

Take Sharkrunners, for example (via O'Reilly Radar et al.)

The aim of the game is to use your (virtual) boat to track - and collect data about - (real) sharks, which have been tagged with GPS receivers. Shark encounters gain you funding dollars, that is, err, points. The game runs in real time, with encounter alerts sent via email. Each encounter earns you grant funding which you can use to upgrade your boat, hire more crew etc.

To add interest, you can play the game with various different agendas:

To start with, you get a basic boat, which can be upgraded over time (I think... I haven't played long enough to find out for sure!)

The game starts by choosing a start location.

Then you're ready to begin:

(See the full set of Sharkrunners rules.)

The game proceeds by setting waypoints (click on your boat and you get the opportunity to set waypoints, the boat;'s speed, etc.) and then, when a shark encounter happens, taking an action within a three hour window:

Once a waypoint is selected, your boat will begin to move toward that waypoint in real-time. The movement in Sharkrunners happens at a realistic pace, and certain waypoints can take hours to reach. Keep an eye on each waypoint's ETA to know how long it will be before your boat reaches that point. Waypoints can be deleted and re-set at any time (except during a shark encounter). Final waypoints indicate the amount of fuel you will have remaining when you arrive at that location.

...

Shark encounters are triggered whenever one or more sharks are located within the encounter range of the player's boat. Encounters are "modal" - the rest of the game pauses and the player must resolve the encounter before doing anything else. If the player isn't currently logged into the game when an encounter is triggered the game will generate an email and/or text message based on the selection that player made about how and when they wish to receive these alerts on the Settings Page.

Encounters have a time limit of approximately 3 hours. The player must log into the online game application to resolve the encounter before this time limit expires. Once the time limit has expired, the player can no longer use this opportunity to collect data and must wait for another encounter to be triggered.

When an encounter is reported you must decide how to handle it, choosing between various sorts of dives (1, 2, 3-person, cage dive) surface observations, "SharkCAM", and so on, depending on the number of people available in the team and the amount of equipment you have managed to accumulate.

This ability to mix live data with virtual game actions that result in plausible encounters and potentially "real" observations is quite compelling, to me.

Tamagotchi "pets" demonstrated how kids could assimilate persistent electronic pets into their life - so maybe persistent science games can provide a driver for creating and maintaining engagement in science based educational activities?

Posted by ajh59 at July 30, 2007 10:47 AM