Operation Clyde

Overview

Operation Clyde is a multiplayer game which utilizes cell phones as the control device. The game provides a local shared area for people to join together and play. In Operation Clyde, players control ghosts using the number pad on their cell phone, by calling into one of the game's phone numbers. Since Pacman provides a simple and well understood gaming interface, it will be an ideal point of departure for a collaborative, situational game. Conference participants can easily and leisurly join and depart from the game while enjoying an almost non-existant learning curve. The Georgia Tech Mobile Technolgies Group will implement Operation Clyde for the Georgia Tech Living Game Worlds Symposium on Wednesday March 16, 2005. We will develop a four player ¡¥reverse pac-man¡¦ game which will allow conference visitors to use their cellular phones to control the four ghosts on a pac-manlike board. The goal of the game will be to catch pac man before all the pellets in the board are devoured.

Hardware Implementation

Operation Clyde is controlled over a Pentium IV PC running JAVA. A 4 channel DTMF interpreter is attached to the parallel port of the PC, which recieves phone tones from 4 cell phones attached to each of its ports. When a user phones one of the game's cell phones, the cell phone automatically answers, and sends any audio through its audio out into the DTMF interpreter. The DTMF interpreter detects any dial tone information, converts it into data, and sends it to the computer. The computer uses this to control the movement of the ghost. The entire time between a player pressing a number on their number pad and a movement being made on the screen is on average less than one second.

Hardware Requirements
1. PC to run game
2. Projector with screen or Plasma Display
3. 4 cell phones with minutes for development & implementation; each phone needs to have ear piece capabilities as well as ¡¥auto-answer¡¦ functionality
4. DTMF detector circuit board
5. Serial Cable
6. PC to screen/projector cable

Testing Plan
The collaborative nature of this game demands a rigorous testing and iteration process. The game needs to be displayed and put to use in a public environment as soon as possible to allow for the most amount of testing possible. Implementation will happen in the EGL and IDT lab where IDT students can play during breaks so they can provide us with recommendations and feeback. Feedback from the testing will then be used on two seperate occaisions to help improve the game design. After this, testing will be to ensure that the system runs smoothly without bugs.

Art & Sound
Visual design for the game will be a combination of 'art rock' poster styles for the layout/levels and the characters (ghosts/pacman) a cartoon style. The levels will compromise of a 28x32 grid, each grid being 16 pixels. The entire screen will be 512x448. A pellet,superpellet, or wall will fit in an entire block and each character will be made up of 4 blocks. The ghosts will be compromised of a simple yet unique ghost template with a series of different accessories that can be selectable for each ghost to make each one unique. The Pac-Man character will be given a more sinister character with the use of a metallic/industrial look.

The game will use an electronic version of the Pac Man theme mixed with, some of the tremelo frequently employed by such classic video games as Spy Hunter. The overall music will be rather ambient, allowing for it to mix pleasently with the other sounds occuring the conference. Sound effects will be used for each of the character actions including: eating pellets, catching pac man, knocking into each other, and eating a super pellet.

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