ThomasfamilyZA & BrendsZA GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa September

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20122

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20123

Wherigo players iPad/iPhone official Groundspeak Wherigo app Garmin some Nuvis, Colorado and Oregon PocketPC devices PocketPC player Android/HTC WhereYouGo app Nokia Symbian phones OpenWIG Test your Wherigo player using the Wherigo Player Tutorial ce-4333dd34db04 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20124

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20125

Wherigo Builders Wherigo cartridges are written in Lua Powerful light-weight scripting language Used in Sim City 4 to customise rewards & some content Used in World of Warcraft for interface customisation Used in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for user interface Wherigo Builders help create Wherigo cartridges Without knowing any Lua programming code Using essentially plain English to set the actions 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20126

Wherigo Builders Groundspeak WherigoBuilder Still Alpha software Last updated 2008 Mixed reviews about using it Earwigo Online only Reviews seem good Active forum on groundspeak forums We didn’t try it out due to online designing only 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20127

Wherigo Builders Urwigo Active forum on groundspeak forums Logic is flowchart driven We learnt to use it in a few days Active error trapping tells you about Missing information Program interface logic errors Works offline, other than: When you design zones When you test the cartridge 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20128

Useful links - General caches-%E2%80%93-part-2-building-cartridges/ Wiki=75ddf31e0c2b71bcc7d8954bd9fe54e designing-wherigos/ 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa 20129

Useful links - Urwigo 6a7ee7185e77e63eb7d80fadf4c29&showforum=62 opic= September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Planning Spend time in the area you will use Explore it properly Look at the landmarks and structures Note the zones you want to use Make sure that zones are: Large enough for player to enter it, especially smartphone user Far apart enough that the GPS won’t get confused Not where muggles will get in the way Find final location Check availability with reviewer 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Planning Plan the Wherigo Plan the concept Plan the story line Align the story line with the area Understand the distances to be travelled and time required Plan the detailed logic to get through the cartridge 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Designing - objects Zones Places the player needs to go to Characters People or animals that the player interacts with Placed in zones Items Things that the player interacts with Placed in zones or in player inventory Tasks Things that the player must do 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Designing - logic Variables Programming items to store logic or information Counters Values you use repeatedly True/False indicators Track progress Timers to do/check time based tasks 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Designing - logic Inputs Player responses from message boxes Can be text input or choices Random events Can be used to create different stories each time Consider asking some realworld questions Prevents players from playing whole cartridge on an emulator and just going to ground zero 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Building Build Zones Build Characters Build Items Build Tasks Build Variables 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Building Create Media and link to objects Place Characters and Items Put them in starting zones Have images and descriptions for all objects Check that display starting status is correct Check that active starting status is correct 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Programming Build events Zone activations Character activations Item activations Interactions Between player and Characters Between player and Items Between Characters and Items Between Items Message inputs All player responses need to be allowed for 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Cartridge requirements With all the different players and screens, for the cartridge to be universal, must design for lowest common denominator Images Must be jpg format Suggested to be 230 x 130 pixels Icons must be 32x32 pixels in jpg format Sound only works on Pocket PC devices Create sound as mp3 files smaller than 512KB Adjust sampling to get balance between size and quality We used Audacity (free open-source sound editor) 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Cartridge requirements OnZone commands do not work on Garmin devices OnClick for characters do not work on Garmin devices OnClick for items do not work on Garmin devices OnClick for tasks do not work on Garmin devices Maximum of 5 active zones at a time Garmin software has problems with emulation protection so leave it off 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Testing the logic - emulator Play all options repeatedly Check it doesn’t crash or get stuck Check zones and logic all work Try stuff in an illogical order Enter and leave zones partway through interactions Try do things in the wrong order Don’t assume players will do things the way you do Check spelling 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Testing the cartridge – real world Download to as many devices as you can Test them in the field as you did the logic Play different options Do it several times Confirm the time taken Check the distance involved 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Implementation Listing on wherigo.com Listing on groundspeak.com Check downloads and links 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Agenda Wherigo Players Wherigo Builders Planning Designing Building Testing Implementing Examples 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa

Some practical examples Taken from GC326H6 Bezuidenhout Park Adventure Story Example 1 Zone setups Example 2 Basic character inputs & random events Taken from GC3M703 Fairytales and Fables Example 3 Changing object details and playing sound 6 September 2012GC3B0EJ – MEGA South Africa