British dev wants to make a game you can ignore

Lecturer working on nontraditional project that takes real-life actions and translates them into RPG actions.

NEWPORT, Wales--Immersive games that eat up all your free time might become a thing of the past, and games that are "easy to ignore" might be the next big thing. Mark Eyles, speaking at this week's Women in Games 2007 event, which he founded in 2004, introduced just such a project.

Eyles, a lecturer in computer games at the University of Portsmouth in the UK and former industry veteran, has developed a game titled Ambient Quest, which will soon be available to play for free online.

In Ambient Quest, players wear a pedometer attached to their belt or pocket, which counts the number of steps that they take. For every 300 steps, players get one move in the PC role-playing game. Each move opens up more squares on the map, as well as opportunities to find food, treasure, or fight monsters to gain experience. Eyles commented, "Players' real actions in the real world affect an avatar in a virtual world. You can either change your actions in the real world to help your avatar. Or not."

Eyles said that he got the idea for the project--which is part of his PhD research--while he was listening to Brian Eno's album Music for Airports. He said, "I was thinking, if that album was a role-playing game, what would it play like? And on the cover it says 'as ignorable as it is interesting.'"

These kinds of pervasive games could be used in a number of ways, Eyles believes. "Imagine a job which involves fairly repetitive actions--for example shelf stacking--that is not so interesting in itself, but [by 'keeping score' of such actions] the game actually makes it interesting," he said.

The idea of a player's real-world actions or environment affecting the game is not entirely new. Other games that have attempted to integrate real-life actions into their gameplay include Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand, where a specially designed Game Boy Advance cartridge measured the amount of sunshine in your real-life environment to gauge how much power the vampire-slaying hero would had in the game.

236 Comments

  • RomisSandthief

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 1:56 pm PT

    This could be really good or really bad depending on how you view it and how well the game is excuted

  • BaldursGate18

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 1:40 pm PT

    CAN SOMEONE SAY TURN BASED LARPING!!!

  • aygol

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 1:32 pm PT

    Lame.

  • The_AI

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 1:32 pm PT

    Weird.

  • theevilvillain

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 1:27 pm PT

    this is very britsh idia.Trust the brits when thinking somthing crative and orginal.

  • MattHall

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 1:26 pm PT

    Wow, this guy is my lecturer at uni!

  • kinglink2

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 1:08 pm PT

    This will be gamed so hard it would be fun. And by gamed I'm using it as in "cheated". Seriously this is the type of game that sounds great on paper and appeals to a very select group of people by the end. Make a better game, not a game you can only play a little of each day.

  • NearTheEnd

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 12:58 pm PT

    Further proof that most good thinking is done while listening to Brian Eno.

  • Rickettsz0780

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 12:22 pm PT

    i play video games so that i can be lazy not so that i have to walk around thats why i don't have a wii

  • HyruleanLink

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 12:22 pm PT

    Creative, but different.

  • BloodLoss

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 12:15 pm PT

    Well now, dosen't that sound like... errr... fun..?

  • Sharvie

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 12:00 pm PT

    WTH. This is the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

  • ReggieNametaker

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 11:57 am PT

    Yes, ignore everything that doesn't follow convention...*sarcasm*

  • deshields538

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 11:27 am PT

    I could ignore this game all day.

  • never-named

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 11:25 am PT

    And the point IS?

  • PutU2REM

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 11:19 am PT

    Interesting concept, but it sounds like it needs some serious retooling. Sorry, Eyles.

  • misteryoung

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 11:06 am PT

    this guy has succeeded....i will definately ignore this game

  • Cobra5

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 10:54 am PT

    Sounds like a terrible idea to me.

  • peeweeshift

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 10:43 am PT

    that gba game was so bulky for a gba game. interesting but they never brought the feature back for previous games. This feature has been used in those digivice toys when digimon was a big thing

  • Davideogamer

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 10:43 am PT

    That's...a bit odd. But at least it's creative.

  • ReggieNametaker

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 10:17 am PT

    To all those saying its a stupid idea you've got to understand that he's not trying to make the next Final Fantasy or Battlefield 2.

    If you actually read the article you'll note that he's created an interesting concept and basing it on mundane real world actions only makes it sound better.

    The only real downside is that the pedometer can easily be cheated

  • ardavies1

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 10:01 am PT

    I wouldn't buy it myself, at least not for the pedometer (I like the idea of a free, ignorable MMORPG), but I do think that his comments about using it with a boring job are genius.

    For those who have boring jobs, anyway :p

  • meganosh

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 10:00 am PT

    stupid idea

  • jem_gal

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:51 am PT

    so you have to walk in real life to gain something in the game? interesting...what if i want to run?

  • KaotixGTX

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:46 am PT

    Eh... Look back at HPs handheld called Mscape. I think this is pretty much the same version of it. Oh and just shake the pedometer all day to get more steps out of it if you want to cheat.

  • gc619

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:29 am PT

    Everyone who's saying that this won't work isn't looking at it right. The people who would actually sign up for this game, would probably want to take it seriously, and use the pedometer while they are doing something eles. Who in their right mind would want to sign up just for the sake of shaking a pedometer for a few hours at a time??? It's a great idea.

  • darth_chedda

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:22 am PT

    The only think i picked up there, was "Walking" "Pedometer" and how much Boktai sucked... Yeah if i want to walk i'll take up a sport...

  • vaejas

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:21 am PT

    This is probably the only thing that could get me to buy a Nike+iPod. Love them wacky PhD projects!

  • shrink45

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:13 am PT

    Heheheheh I work at Safeway, too devildemondruid. We're probly the only ones who have a LIFE.

  • biowulf

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:04 am PT

    you could shake it, but chances are you'd get tired

  • viberooni

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 9:02 am PT

    pedobear?

  • LessThanMike

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:58 am PT

    why can't they just let me stay in my living room and play games on my couch...lol

  • Wolfcp11

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:58 am PT

    People will just hook it up to something like their washer and let it get more clicks in...

  • arczero01

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:52 am PT

    yea sound i agree sounds more directed twords casual gamers.

  • rdnapper

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:51 am PT

    His theory is interesting but the pedometer idea is bad.

  • KingSigy

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:46 am PT

    Do you get the pedometer, or your avatar?

  • OfficialBed

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:13 am PT

    well....that's definitely an interesting idea

  • wedgejaeger

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:10 am PT

    yeah, I had a friend that used to just strap the pedometer to a washer/dryer, that usually worked pretty well.

  • CJTheBurninator

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 8:07 am PT

    Sounds like...fun...loads of...fun...

  • cybrcatter

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 7:57 am PT

    Absolutely retarded. Just, wow. And you know that there are students of his just hanging on his every word.

  • AceCometh

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 7:47 am PT

    So lame. I'll just ignore this article.

  • rokkuman09

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 7:29 am PT

    Pedometers are too easy to cheat as other people are saying.. But it's still a interesting idea, it could make doing boring stuff feel less.. boring at least, if they tried to further develop such ideas.

  • ArfenZard15

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 7:24 am PT

    I don't think I understand...

    You get a pedometer to measure how may steps you take in the real world and it opens up new parts of a world in a game?

    If I'm right I got some questions:
    How will it know how many steps you take on the game?
    Why bother when you could just shake the damn thing?

    Sure it sounds different but I can't really imagine it'd get used how it's supposed to. it won'r get people walking.

  • finaleve

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 7:23 am PT

    I'd cheat. A pedometer can easily be duped just by shaking it, and thus free moves without actually doing anything.

    It would have worked too.

  • hector1313

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 7:11 am PT

    An interesting one... though this is perhaps more for the casual gamer than for the hardcore audience.

    Hardcore gamers obviously prefer to sit down and play games for however many hours they want to, whereas a casual gamer might just want to sit down after a hard day for a little while to sort things out and then quit it once they're done.

    Not a game for me though hehe. I need the gaming marathons methinks... self professed addict

  • JimmeyBurrows

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 7:01 am PT

    It's a pretty good idea, since most MMO's are made so that if you don't play it every day you miss out and get left behind, whereas having a game that you can put down could be useful, then again it could just flop because people who play MMO's will generally have the time to play them everyday anyway..

  • The_Weekend

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 6:57 am PT

    I WANNNNNNNNNA PLAY!

  • gingerdude666

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 6:28 am PT

    how about we all just ignore this.

  • GrimBee

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 5:53 am PT

    "Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand, where a specially designed GBA cartridge measured the amount of sunshine in the real-life environment in order to gauge how much power the vampire-slaying hero would have. "

    Sounds fantastic... until you realise that playing a game in the sunlight is near impossible as the screen is not bright enough for out-doors

  • LinkRemembered

    Posted Apr 22, 2007 5:50 am PT

    I think I'm missing the point here...

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