Publication: Extendiendo uAdventure con funcionalidades de geoposicionamiento
Loading...
Official URL
Full text at PDC
Publication Date
2017
Authors
Advisors (or tutors)
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Citations
Exportar
Abstract
El crecimiento de las tecnologías móviles ha creado nuevas posibilidades para el desarrollo de videojuegos. En este ámbito, sacar partido de los sensores existentes en los terminales puede dar lugar a nuevas mecánicas que integren todavía más los juegos con la realidad. Este es el caso de los juegos geoposicionados. El gran éxito de videojuegos como Pokémon GO ha suscitado un gran interés social en dicho campo. Dentro del ámbito educativo, los juegos serios no pueden ser una excepción en este movimiento. Por ello, las nuevas generaciones de juegos serios pueden basarse en ideas del campo del geoposicionamiento (y de la realidad aumentada) para proporcionar enseñanzas más interactivas y auténticas en las que se mezclen elementos reales y elementos de juego en el proceso de aprendizaje. La plataforma de creación de juegos denominada uAdventure, que aspira a convertirse en el sucesor de eAdventure tras el declive de Java, ha dado el salto definitivo a los dispositivos móviles a través de una reimplementación basada en el motor de videojuegos Unity3D. En este proyecto, además de hacer una reingeniería que ha permitido mejorar y pulir uAdventure, se han incorporado nuevas funcionalidades orientadas a sacar provecho del GPS incorporado en los dispositivos móviles. De esta forma se han creado nuevas mecánicas de juego tales como el acceso a zonas geoposicionadas, la visualización de elementos espaciales o el acercamiento a elementos en el espacio, dando lugar a nuevas interacciones conectadas directamente con el entorno que favorecen un aprendizaje a través de la experimentación. Más concretamente, se han desarrollado una serie de plugins para la plataforma uAdventure que permiten mezclar nuevos elementos geoposicionados y elementos del modelo de uAdventure en un nuevo tipo de escena de tipo mapa. Este mapa permitirá a los jugadores ser representados en el entorno de juego y convertir el entorno real en un elemento virtual. Además, dado que el geoposicionamiento puede fallar en interiores, se incorporan soporte de códigos QR que permite realizar posicionamiento de bajo coste en interiores. Para la implementación de los plugins, la arquitectura de uAdventure se ha mejorado drásticamente en términos de extensibilidad, pudiendo incorporar nuevas mecánicas sin necesidad de ser un gran experto en la plataforma. Finalmente, el proyecto cubre la incorporación del geoposicionamiento en las analíticas de aprendizaje, así como la ejecución de un caso de prueba con usuarios que ha permitido una validación inicial del desarrollo realizado y de las nuevas posibilidades de las analíticas resultantes teniendo en cuenta el geoposicionamiento.
Mobile technologies evolution has created new possibilities for game development. Taking advantage of the mobile device sensors it is possible to develop new game mechanics that better integrate games with reality. This is the case of geolocated games. The big success of videogames like Pokémon GO has aroused a big social interest in that field. Serious games cannot be an exception for this movement. New generations of serious games can take advantage of geolocation (and also augmented reality) to create more interactive and realistic learning experiences that mix up real and game elements in the learning process. The serious games authoring tool called uAdventure, that aims to become the successor of eAdventure after all the present Java issues (e.g. deployment), has made the final step towards mobile devices by being reimplemented on top of Unity3D videogame engine. In this project, not only a reengineering that has improved and polished uAdventure has been done but it has also included new functionalities oriented to take advantage of the GPS already present in mobile devices. This way, new game mechanics have been developed such as entering geopositioned zones or especial element visualizations, creating new kinds of interactions directly connected with the environment to allow for a more experience-based learning. That way a new series of plugins for uAdventure have been developed, allowing to mix up new geopositioned elements with already existing uAdventure model elements in a brand new map scene. This map will allow players to be represented inside the game and transform the real world into a virtual interactive element. In addition, due to the possible fails of indoors geopositioning, QR code support is provided as a low-cost alternative way to implement indoors positioning. In order to develop the plugins, uAdventure’s architecture has been drastically improved in terms of extensibility, allowing it to incorporate new mechanics without being an expert in the uA platform. Finally, the project has not only provided the support for geopositioning in uA linked with the learning analytics capabilities, but also has done an experiment with users to initially validate the development made and the new possibilities of the resulting analytics based on geopositioning.
Mobile technologies evolution has created new possibilities for game development. Taking advantage of the mobile device sensors it is possible to develop new game mechanics that better integrate games with reality. This is the case of geolocated games. The big success of videogames like Pokémon GO has aroused a big social interest in that field. Serious games cannot be an exception for this movement. New generations of serious games can take advantage of geolocation (and also augmented reality) to create more interactive and realistic learning experiences that mix up real and game elements in the learning process. The serious games authoring tool called uAdventure, that aims to become the successor of eAdventure after all the present Java issues (e.g. deployment), has made the final step towards mobile devices by being reimplemented on top of Unity3D videogame engine. In this project, not only a reengineering that has improved and polished uAdventure has been done but it has also included new functionalities oriented to take advantage of the GPS already present in mobile devices. This way, new game mechanics have been developed such as entering geopositioned zones or especial element visualizations, creating new kinds of interactions directly connected with the environment to allow for a more experience-based learning. That way a new series of plugins for uAdventure have been developed, allowing to mix up new geopositioned elements with already existing uAdventure model elements in a brand new map scene. This map will allow players to be represented inside the game and transform the real world into a virtual interactive element. In addition, due to the possible fails of indoors geopositioning, QR code support is provided as a low-cost alternative way to implement indoors positioning. In order to develop the plugins, uAdventure’s architecture has been drastically improved in terms of extensibility, allowing it to incorporate new mechanics without being an expert in the uA platform. Finally, the project has not only provided the support for geopositioning in uA linked with the learning analytics capabilities, but also has done an experiment with users to initially validate the development made and the new possibilities of the resulting analytics based on geopositioning.
Description
Máster en Ingeniería Informática, Facultad de Informática, Departamento de Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial, curso 2016-2017