Here is a research project I have been doing with my PhD student Fadi Chehimi which attempts to take another look at using the camera on phones in games and particular harnessing some of the power of S60 (something, with a few notable exceptions, I feel hasn’t been fully explored in games). Mobilazer is a mixed-reality first person shoot-em-up game which engages two or more teams of players in an unbounded physical location. The software turns a player’s mobile phone camera into a form of ‘laser’ gun whereby he can shoot opposing players by interacting with specially designed visual tags. Once a tag is detected Mobilazer displays a targeted-sign, in the form of a circle centred at the coloured-tag, indicating the identification of the rival as shown in the figure below and our video on you tube.

When the targeted-sign is on screen, the player needs to move his phone to point the crosshair, which is always in the middle of the screen, at the tag. The player will be able to shoot his virtual laser beam to kill the opponent. The kills and points are controlled through interaction with a central game server communicating over the GPRS.

Mobilazer currently has four different playing modes available to choose from, all of which are to be initiated by a preformed social grouping these are Fortress, Last Man standing, Individual Battle Mode, and Group Battle Mode.

One of the essential elements for successful multi-player computer games is that of differentiating players’ experiences so that the game is balanced. Balance means that all players feel they have an equal chance of competing, keeping in mind the differentiation between experienced and non-experienced ones. Interestingly, this feature has not been given much consideration in mixed-reality games although it most likely ensures that players return to the game on multiple occasions. Therefore, in Mobilazer we have introduced a system of armours and weapons which allows both new players and more expert ones the opportunity to gain experience, and rewards returning players for their repeated game play.

One of the innovative features is The Sniper which allows a player to shoot tags that are much farther than the normal camera range. The effect is applied using Symbian-specific bitmap manipulation utilities that enlarge and clip images, rather than simply depending only on the camera API zooming functions

As yet we have only done the technical testing but we are hoping to start users trials soon as the the Bristish weather does seem to be getting better!