A Digital Companion to Assist the Game Master for the Orchestration of a Mixed-Reality Game

Abstract

The control of the game world by the game master during the activity requires a precise monitoring of the activity which increases in a mixed-reality game context due to the multiplicity of possible interactions with the tangible and digital game elements. This article deals with the design of a digital companion to help a game master to orchestrate a game. This companion is integrated in a game, Geome, a mixed-reality game dedicated to museum school visits, that combines tangible and digital elements. This companion is based on the collection of multimodal traces from different interactions set up during the whole game scenario. This paper addresses the issue of the traces to collect to help the game master in the configuration and the monitoring of the activity. The presented prototype is the result of a co-design process between researchers, practitioners, and computer scientists. Thus, we present the first results from 3 experiments conducted with students (12–15 years old) in a natural museum. The results show the types of interactions tracked during the game use and the needed information for the game orchestration. However, while the players play the game as intended using most of the features, the game master makes little use of his dashboard and does not interact with the players through the dedicated interface.