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One of the all time greatest computer games has to be Atari’s old school classic; ‘Pong’. For those of you that are un-familiar with the game, the aim of the game is to bounce a ball past your opponent by moving a bat left and right across a baseline. The skill is in finding the right angles off the bat, often using the sidewalls, to out-do your opponent. The beauty of Pong is its simplicity and the game-play is highly addictive.

Over the past couple of months I have been working with a team in collaboration with Brighton based GPS gaming company; Locomatrix. We have been designing and prototyping a game we have titled ‘Global Tennis’, which takes the Pong game metaphor and combines it with real world game-play. Instead of using a clunky keyboard to control the bat, players run in the real world whilst their movements are tracked by GPS. By co-ordinating ball movements on the on screen interface with bat movements through short sprints; players can now have the same fun the old school classic brought, whilst outside exercising and enjoying the weather. Plus they can compete against other players from all over the world. Pretty neat eh?!

We applied a traditional tennis scoring system to the game, with players competing for game points to win sets, and a choice of 1, 3 or 5 set matches. We were also well aware that we needed to suit the game to more or less hyperactive users, so players can adjust the difficulty through baseline length and ball speed. Want to run energetically back and forth like shuttle runs, set the ball speed high and the baseline length low. Fancy a slower jog over distance, set the ball speed low and the baseline length higher. The choice is left up to the players.

In designing the game, we followed an iterative development process. Our initial user inquiry, showed an interest for the game concept and a positive attitude in combining gaming and exercise. Our lo-fidelity prototypes of the games UI also got positive feedback from users. We kept the interface neat and simple to give it the retro character the original had. We also went down to the seafront to do some real world tests of the games speed and distance settings. The footage taken also allowed us to put together an illustrative hi-fidelity prototype. It was a good laugh, and we can definitely see kids and families having hours of fun on the beach, in the park, or even in the back garden for those that don’t have the guts to run around in public holding a GPS unit. Over the next few weeks our team will be pulling together final prototypes of the in game menu system and developing UML diagrams and pseudo code to describe the back-end game mechanics in full.

So if Global Tennis is produced and takes off, expect to see lots of people running back and forth in public at a beach or park near you soon!

~ Jack Josephy, Antony Fernandez, Edward Anstead, Dan Holliday. University of Sussex HCCS MSc.