Presentation here:

anaid-media.com/files/cswainpresentation.sxi

The results of Mike's and my meeting this afternoon (note: I have this map as a large print-res file as well as this screen-res one)



Changes/Additions/Tweaks for rules:
-Players play cards to piles, and leave face up
-At start of turn, player may choose to draw from face-up pile or face-down pile
-Draw 2 at beginning (to keep hand at 9), then either play two or discard
-Specials are interrupts, and can be played at any time. Player draws at start of next turn to make up for any specials played (again, to keep hand at 9)
-Special cards, once played, are placed at the bottom of the discard pile.
-No actual ordinal cards needed; one of either direction (North or West to go NW) will suffice
-When players land on the same place, they switch hands.
-ORV vehicles can move across natural disasters (like floods and earthquakes), but are still affected by road blocks.
-Road blocks apply to a city from all directions.
-See sample cards for areas affected by earthquakes and floods, as well as duration.
-Airplanes move across grid squares, rather than moving along grid lines.
-The hand size modifier card travels with that hand (so if you have a +1 on your hand and someone swaps hands with you, they now have 10 in their hand and you are back to 9).
-On the map, cities in red have airports, and only those cities can be connected by planes. The wide yellow line indicates railroad, while the winding blue line indicates waterways. The white gridline is the highway system, and also the basis for measuring distance.

http://www.swaincorp.com/541/

Upload Site

A->B Verbs
Clicks
Moves
Drags
Decides
Cooperatives
Guesstimates
Reads
Competes
Races
Strategizes
Matches
Combines
Assumes
Learns
Travels

All categories fall under: Races and Learns.

The player races with or against other players between points on the globe.

Brief

A→B is a map-based interactive experience in which the player races against other players between points on the globe. By choosing between modes of transportation, routes, and distances, the player decides how best to utilize his resources to reach his destination before his opponents. Along the way, he overcomes challenges and learns about his environment.

Using the technology behind the popular Google Earth and Wikipedia services, A→B is driven by real-world, real-time data. The player moves across the map utilizing a variety of modes of transportation, taking into account local conditions, costs, and availability. At each stop, he receives short bursts of information about his current location, enabling him to make informed decisions. If he chooses, he may compete against other players in a race-like mode, or he may choose to cooperate with other players in goal-oriented missions.

Due next week 9/18:
v4 (Final Version of A->B)
Interface Storyboard v1
Visual Presentation (Creative Brief, Basic Paper Prototype, Interface Storyboard)
20-30 Minutes

Title Slide (1 slide)
State problem visually (1-3 slides)
Illustrate Solution Visually (20-50 Slides)
-Title + Logline (1 slide)
-Interaction Illustration (3-4 Slides)
-Interface Storyboard
-etc. i.e. I can't type that fast.

This week's packet to turn in:

And I even made it a link so Mike's head won't hurt

A->B Online Edition. Rules and Tech Notes.

Randomly picked cards, but user is allowed to choose when/how to use. The computer will run a double SRand(X), where X is the number of choices available to that particular region/area. This way, the seed number keeps changing and allows for a greater variety of random picks.

Card # _
1 Car |
2 Train |
3 Plane > Drawn from a regional database depending on location and type
4 Boat | of game. i.e. Tram, Bike, Taxi, Walk, depending on what forms of
5 ORV _| transportation are available from that area. Basic Moves.
--------- _
6 Local 1 > Drawn from a different regional database depending on local
7 Local 2 _| transportation peculiar to that area. i.e. Dogsled, Rickshaw, etc. Some of
these may replace the basic moves, i.e. Shinkansen (Japan)->
train. Local/Regional Moves. Blank out or add more slots as needed.
8 Card Specials > Drawn from the database of special cards. i.e. Draw 3 cards, discard 2.
9 Movement Specials > Drawn from a database of special cards, i.e. Your Choice Card.

Once SRand picks 8 or 9, then another random number is generated 1-X, to pick which special card the player receives. Or conceivably, another way is to nest all the different effects and use the same system. i.e.:

Card #
1-(All Movements) ->Roll 1-5 (X)
2-(All Local Movements) -> Roll 1-2 (X)
3-(Card Specials) -> Roll 1-X
9-(Movement Specials) -> Roll 1-X

Game Lengths
These are more based on the physical distance between areas, instead of borders, because that is what is really going to determine the length of the game. For instance, Driving from Amsterdam to Florence, would take less time than from Washington D.C. to Miami.

Local-In Town, i.e sizes ranging from Podunk to San Jose. to Tokyo, etc.
Within States (U.S.)/Regional-Provinces in China, single countries in Europe because of the size of the countries. i.e. L.A. to San Diego, Den Hague to Rotterdam, etc.
Country (Depending on the size of the country)-i.e. USA, China, Russia, but also Western Europe because of the size of the countries, anything from L.A. to Orlando, Beijing to Hong Kong, Brussels to Antwerp. However, we can also include E.U. countries in this category to decrease confusion and just create a separate bracket for them.
Continent-Europe, Austrailia, North/South America, etc.
World-Duh.
Universe?!?!?!-Waiting on you, Buck Rogers.

Dynamic Database Parsing
The Dynamic information that will be used by A-B will be drawn from a variety of online databases that our system will parse out the data we need. Depending on the size the game grows to, deals could be made with each service to provide us with custom sets of data, instead of our systems spidering their websites. Database include:
Google Maps: For the base game engine, map generation, etc.
Travel.com: For travel information (Cards 1-7-X) and interrupts (i.e. train out of order).
Wikipedia.org : Local information and cultural facts, ala Carmen Sandiego.
Weather.com: Typhooooonnnnn~!!! And other things that Mother Nature would care to throw in the path of our intrepid travelers.

Other Databases that would be contained on our server would be:
Card Lists-Lists of all the cards and their affects towards the game. Cards would be randomly drawn from this database.
Frames-To change the look of the visual interface depending on the region.
Music/SFX-Different local music, depending on the region. Elvis in Tennessee, Soul in Detroit, Chopin in Poland, Enka in Kyoto, Bailaika in Russia, etc. This keeps the aural part of the interface fresh and interesting for the player. And music does not need to be chosen from traditional styles, but also popular artists depending on the availability and licensing we are able to get.

For example, to keep the randomness of information on a site such as Wikipedia, the entry will be very specific. So if the player is in Kobe, then our system will query Wikipedia (which shouldn’t be too difficult through a widget/konfabulator style interface) and select one random section, i.e. history, culture, geography to display to the user. So that nearly every time they land on the same city/area, they will get some new information. If by chance, that the area is too small or obscure i.e. Huilong, Taiwan. Then the system will query the next thing in the chain, i.e. area, until a hit is generated.

Chain System (For towns/areas not found) Using Taiwan and the US as an example.
Specific Area (i.e. Hsimen or Wall Street)
General Area (Central Taipei, Manhattan)
City (Taipei, New York)
State/District (North Taiwan 1st Governmental Region, New York)
Country (Taiwan, USA)
Region (East Asia, North America)

A concept for the interface. Took longer than I thought, so we'll see how much functionality will go in by the time class starts. Any suggestions for functionality you'd like to see?

Eminent Domain Revision! Pollution is a crying shame btw.

The full document, including rules, card breakdowns, and journal for the week:

http://anaid-media.com/files/A-B Week 2.pdf

Let me know if I left anything out or if there is something we want to add.

Mike is a Grammar Nazi

K, Basic Movement:

Train-Transcontinental Railroad allows you to move up to 300 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States with train stations.

Boat-Steamboat allows you to move up to 400 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States with harbors.

Car-Model T allows you to move up to 100 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States connected by highways.

Plane-Kitty Hawk allows you to move up to 500 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States with airports.

Off Road Vehicle-Hummer allows to move up to 200 miles in your chosen direction.

Directions, again, simply N,E,S,W, and Purple.

K, Basic Movement:

Train-Transcontinental Railroad allows you to move up to 300 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States with train stations.

Boat-Steamboat allows you to move up to 400 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States with harbors.

Car-Model T allows you to move up to 100 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States connected by highways.

Plane-Kitty Hawk allows you to move up to 500 miles in your chosen direction from any two points in the domestic United States with airports.

Off Road Vehicle-Hummer allows to move up to 200 miles in your chosen direction.

Directions, again, simply N,E,S,W, and Purple.

Suggestions for special cards:

Switch Positions -> Job transfer? The player who plays this card forces any two players to swap their final destinations.

Rotate Board -> The Great San Francisco Earthquake: Each player passes their final destination to the player on their right

Take an Extra Turn -> Dot-com bubble. By investing in the unlimited potential of the internet, the player playing this card taps into enough money to play additional cards this turn. Afterwards, draw as many cards as played this turn.

Block -> Watergate. Look into the target player's hand, and discard one of their cards. At the end of their next turn, they may redraw a card to fill this void.

Your Choice-> Selective Service Draft: This card may be played as either a direction of movement or form of transportation card. Alternately, this card may be played during another player's turn to modify the direction or form of transportation that they have played.

Super-sized drive-through in your SUV: Draw three cards at the beginning of your next turn. At the end of your turn, you must discard cards until your hand is the same size it was at the time this card was player.

Eminent Domain: You may increase or decrease target player's maximum hand size by one card for the remainder of the game.

The Great Depression: All players must draw new hands.

The Summer of Love: All players must trade their cards with another player. If you receive more cards than your hand can hold, discard. If you receive fewer cards than your hand can hold, draw additional cards.

First off, this is where the map grid pieces and whatnot are stored in a handy .zip file

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~acyang/541_Mats.zip

I really should get cranking on the IMD webspace to figure this out.

Anyways, included are all the materials to make extra cards, the map board (which looks really bad to me...I'll try to make a better one), the 2 sample cards in .psd with layers and jpeg (also posted above). I made one really simple change while I was working on these, why not add some education in anyway while we're working on just the USA edition, so I did some history ie flavor text at the bottom, and renamed the cards to be a little more relevant, you'll see as Train I switched to Transcontinental Railroad, and the POWAAAHHHH!!!!! Card ie draw or force 1 card from hand perm. I switched to Grand Canyon, I thought it would be appropriate to set it as one of the most famous US landmarks. Anyways, take a look, below is a list of the rules we came up with. Also if you want to make extra cards yourself, after a crapload of tooling around in Photoshop to blank out a MTG card, you'll find all the parts you need to construct them easily, also the picture window dimensions are exactly 279x204, so that will help out. Heeerree we go! BTW best brainstorm session ever on the beach, we must do that more often, hahaha. Also, we can do archaic transportation or objects, ie Transcont railroad, since it also throws in some history and info that we wanted to integrate with the online database system.

-A.O. Al Out

A->B USA Edition (Domestic)
4 Base Movements
-Train (Transcontinental Railroad)
-Plane (Wright Brothers? Something related since Aviation was invented in the US)
-Boat (Not sure about famous boats, certainly we could do Christopher Columbus but
something more relevant would be nice, any ideas? Like for the global version, in China
boats would be something like Junks or Dragon Boats, maybe Steam Boats since those
seem to be all the rage along the Missisippi in times of yore)
-Car (Model T! Should be suitable)
And we can also add more types of movements depending on the area, like the Off Road Vehicle Card, or Dogsled in like Alaska or Russia.

5 Directionals N,E,S,W and Purple.

Special Moves!
-Switch Positions -> Random City (?)
-Rotate Board -> Rotate City (L.A. Quake! lolol, but seriously Great San Francisco Quake)
-Take an Extra Turn (? Something in US History that was inspiring, emancipation proclamation? eh? hmmm...Industrial Revolution? But that was more prevalent in EU.)
-Block->look at target players hand, remove 1 card. That player draws 2 cards at the end of their turn after they've made their move. [They skip drawing a card at the beginning of their turn.] (hmmm...Cold War?)
-Your Choice->You get to pick either the direction OR form of transportation. Alternate version card allows you to force 1 opponent to a specific direction or form of allowed transportation at their current point. (lolololol Forced Armed Services Draft or er..)
-Draw 3 cards and at the end of your turn discard 2 randomly [opponent randomly picks 2 cards to discard, pc version, comp decides] (WOW, what a power card. Brainstorm anyone? Ice Age, 1 blue? nope? looking at you Mike!, anyways, how about uh Eniac, or something along the invention of the computer, also in the US, or ARPANET, that might be fun)
-Force hand size down 1 for target opponent, or up 1 for you. (Grand Canyon, but just a spec at this point.)
-All Players draw new hands (uh, WWII? Or Vietnam)
-Players swap hands counterclockwise/randomly (Hmm...Summer of Love? hahahahah yeah '69..huh...that one actually makes sense, but lets keep this PG. Can we make an X rated version? Buhahahahahaa)

A-B Notes from 8/22/06...straight from the Ramen Shop Thinktank

Additional Ideas:
-Targetable Geography for specific learning, ie only Europe, US, etc.

6 Basic Actions based on a random D6 (Six sided Die) seed:
1.$100 USD
2$150 USD
3.$200 USD
4.$250 USD
5.$300 USD
6. Special Action, if 6, then -> Special Action D6 seed:
1. Switch Destinations (Rotate Destinations one slot right/left)
2. Free Tickets (ie free turn, good for long flights, etc.)
3. Block one form of transportation (car, plane, train, etc.)
4. Warp (Random D4 seed in the four cardinal directions). You
are able to choose a player (including yourself) before the
random direction is chosen. Player is shifted X miles/km in that direction depending on the time of game.
5. ? TBD
6. ? TBD

So here, sans pictures (curse you, Picasa!) is what we talked about for this game:

A--->B
Where the world is your game board.

Google Earth-like game based on finding a route from one point to another.

-Several distance modes: all the way around the world, 90 degrees, shorter
-Several time modes: real-time, half-time, shorter
-Die roll determines amount of money available
-Money is spent to acquire train/plane tickets, car rental, gas, etc.
-Prices/times determined by realtime interfaces with Travel.com, Weather.com, Travelocity, etc.
-Users can play in single or multi player modes--in multiplayer, the "winner" is the one who reaches their destination first; strategies are built around stretching dollars into miles more quickly
-For an educational aspect, locations may trip a Wikipedia article, providing background on the user's current location, mode of travel, etc. (an article on Mumbai, India, or the history of the Boeing 747)
-Users can put obstacles in each others' paths...still need to establish a means for doing so, since the real environment can't be manipulated...perhaps trigger car trouble, hack bank accounts, etc?

Paper prototype for next class:
-Map of US with specific locations/paths between locations available
-For each city, a set of data is pre-prepared with gas prices, airline prices, weather conditions, etc.

Pictures to follow once we re-take them tomorrow morning.