University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Localite

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Localite

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Content

Localite

Anna
Lotko

April
24,
2014

M.F.A
Thesis
Paper

Interactive
Media
and
Games
Division

School
of
Cinematic
Arts

University
of
Southern
California

Table
of
Contents

Abstract.................................................................................................................1

Concept.................................................................................................................1

Goals........................................................................................................................................2

Explore design opportunities for proximity and orientation-based game mechanics that are
played across multiple devices. ..................................................................................................................................2

Design simple, accessible games that can entertain social groups in idle spaces, such as event
lines or waiting rooms....................................................................................................................................................3

Enable strangers to connect through spontaneous, face-to-face game sessions....................................3

Test Localite games in public places to refine game design for casual audiences and to better
understand how this kind of gameplay can temporarily transform social culture.............................4

Values.....................................................................................................................................4

The Funtervention ..........................................................................................................................................................4

The Funtervention Values Statement......................................................................................................................5

Evolution
of
Goals
&
Consistency
of
Values............................................................6

Process..................................................................................................................6

Pre-Production
and
Work
to
Date...........................................................................6

The Tomfoolery, Summer 2013 .................................................................................................................................6

The Pocket Playground, Spring 2013 .....................................................................................................................7

Bubble Game, Spring 2013 .........................................................................................................................................9

The Crowd, Spring 2013 ............................................................................................................................................10

Futurebound, USC Collegeology Games ............................................................................................................11

Reality Ends Here, USC Fall 2011 .........................................................................................................................11

Eclectic
Potatoes,
V1...................................................................................................12

Early Playtesting in the SCA Courtyard & Ergonomics Issues ...............................................................14

Stevens Institute Pitch: Product vs. Feature .....................................................................................................16

Eclectic
Potatoes,
V2...................................................................................................18

Core Gameplay Goals .................................................................................................................................................19

The game will be accessible to new players but accommodate deep play.........................19

Players will communicate competitively and cooperatively for success in the game19

Halloween Open House: Private and Public Screen Space .........................................................................19

Winter Show: Grounding User Experience and the EP Time Capsule..................................................20

Stone
Soup,
a
StoryPop...............................................................................................22

February Advisor Feedback and In-Home User Testing Research ........................................................24

Should I use the second, handheld device as an extension of the screen versus a prop
controller?......................................................................................................................................................................25

Is it confusing that the perspective of the second, handheld device shifts as it
becomes either a means to role-play with story characters or a means to play a
“god” figure and enact story events............................................................................................................26

Should I remove the user’s agency over the spatial relationship between devices or
should I pick one simple calibration paradigm between devices.............................................26

Should I introduce a new cross-screen interaction on each page or should I select a
few strong interactions that can be reused throughout the book?..........................................28

Conclusions....................................................................................................................29

Bibliography.....................................................................................................31

Lotko

1

Abstract
Localite explores new paradigms of multi-user play across the screens of multiple
mobile devices. Each Localite project encourages real-time participation through play
with devices that often construct social barriers. While the content of networked devices
can reach far and wide across geographical boundaries, spatially specific relationships
between devices and the boundaries of their screens has remained largely unexplored. As
we surround ourselves with more and more digital displays, our need for tactile and
spatial relationships between displays will surely grow. My thesis proposes that spatial
awareness between devices serves our natural desire for tangibility and provides new
opportunities for emotional presence with multi-user experiences.

Concept
I originally imagined Localite to be a playground in physical space around the
personal mobile devices that are ubiquitous today. I proposed Localite as an arcade of
multiplayer, mobile, mini-games that explore the social potential of spatially continuous
play across networked mobile devices in the same physical location. Localite was
initially defined by games that would allow users to combine multiple Android Phones,
iPods or iPhones to create a continuous game arena through a new method of screen
sharing across devices. I sought to develop a new method of playing across devices (see
fig. 1) that would let me explore the relationships between shared physical and digital
spaces. I proposed to explore game mechanics that live in both digital and physical
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spheres.

Fig. 1. Playing across multiple screens.

Goals
The original project goals that I included in my thesis proposal sought to explore
game mechanics across multiple devices, entertain groups of people with casual play and
enable players to connect through game experiences. Since starting production on my
thesis, I’ve shifted the focus of my work to more open-ended play experiences. It’s
valuable to reflect back on the initial goals I set for myself to follow the trajectory of my
thesis over the past year.

Explore design opportunities for proximity and orientation-based game mechanics
that are played across multiple devices.
When a kid first plays with oobleck, the discovery of its responsiveness has a
visceral effect because it looks unimpressive but behaves unlike ordinary materials.
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3

Similarly when we discover some surprising capability of a familiar technology, the
effect is visceral. In designing, developing and testing Localite games, I will better
understand how this new method of sharing screens for a collective digital game space
can transform our understanding of connectivity between mobile devices.

Design simple, accessible games that can entertain social groups in idle spaces, such
as event lines or waiting rooms.
Accessibility of gameplay mechanics is essential to Localite games because they
are designed for spontaneous, impromptu settings. I want to see Localite games being
played by friends who are waiting in a line or by kids in the backseat of a car. I want
Localite games to feel like they are full experiences, even though they may only be
played in short bursts. Because the games require at least 3 players and network
connectivity, I will design Localite games to reduce other barriers of access.

Enable strangers to connect through spontaneous, face-to-face game sessions.
Localite will host a series of events called Popup Arcades during the
spring/summer of 2014 to connect strangers though gameplay. The Popup Arcade will
take the form of an impromptu happening, wherein interested community members will
be instructed to bring their mobile devices to a public location, at a specific time for the
purpose of play. Localite’s Popup Arcades are similar to flash mobs, in that they will be
held in public places as a funtervention and a public spectacle. Social media and other
external tools will be used to organize Popup Arcades.

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4

Test Localite games in public places to refine game design for casual audiences and
to better understand how this kind of gameplay can temporarily transform social
culture.
Networked mobile devices enable us to connect with anyone in any place at any
time, which can be enormously helpful but can also distract us from our immediate
surroundings. Because Localite games promote the immediacy of face-to-face interaction
and engage the social attention of groups, gameplay must be tested in social contexts. I
will also use Localite’s Popup Arcades as playtesting opportunities.

Values
Early on in the thesis timeline, it became apparent to me that design values would
be more important that design goals. Design goals can originate from design values, but
synthesizing a values framework to motivate my project was preliminary oversight.
When I formulated the aforementioned project goals, I hadn’t previously written a values
statement. In September I developed the “Funtervention,” as a framework for 5 core
beliefs to clarify the focus and importance of my thesis.

The Funtervention
1. We believe that games truly have the power to improve the way we treat each other.
2. We believe that technology is a net positive.
3. We believe that technology can be isolating.
4. We believe that its possible for games, an ancient format, to break the box of modern
technology isolation.
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5. We believe that interaction in real, physical space is an important part of forming
social bonds.

The Funtervention Values Statement
To better explain how these beliefs relate to my thesis, my team and I came up
with a value statement: Real, physical spaces and the experiences they facilitate are
important. The ways in which we connect with others around us have changed as
networked mobile technologies have become more accessible and more advanced. But
we believe that technology is a net positive. The smartphone-revolution is amazing; each
of us carries around the Library of Alexandria in our pockets. And while most people
probably spend more time using these devices for entertainment or casual social
interaction than uncovering the mysteries of the universe, we still believe that mobile
technology has empowered us for the better.

The same mobile devices that connect us together can also drive us into isolation.
Instead of excluding technology that often builds social barriers in our physical life, we
aim to embrace mobile technology through a hybridization of digital-physical
entertainment. The Localite team has memories of couch co-op, tabletop RPGs and two-
players-one-keyboard play. These were experiences that required you to be present, to
engage each other with interest. While our backgrounds are largely in game design and
development, we’re considering all forms of interactive entertainment on mobile devices
that inspire emotional presence.

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So, if everyone has a screen and we’re all stuck in the box that the screen
represents, what happens if we’re asked to share screens?

Evolution of Goals & Consistency of Values
While the format of my project and the specificity of my design goals have
changed over the course of development, I am certain that my values framework has
remained consistent. Since forming the funtervention I’ve substituted the word “game”
with the word “play” and I’ve honed in on a specific facet of how mobile devices make
us “alone, together” (Turkle).

Process
My thesis took place in 4 broad phases. The first phase was pre-production and
work to date that led up to production of my thesis. The second was Eclectic Potatoes V1,
a large-scale game that involved pinching between multiple mobile devices. The third
phase was Eclectic Potatoes V3, a strategic, table-top, battle of the bands game for 2-4
players. The fourth phase was Stone Soup, a new form of digital pop-up book for kids to
be shared by 2 readers.

Pre-Production and Work to Date
Tomfoolery, Summer 2013
Tomfoolery was designed as a mash-up of SpaceTeam, Twister and Bop-It. The
user experience of the game enabled two players to pair abstract shapes from separate
devices with a pinching gesture, at which point players were given new pairing
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instructions and the shapes that they have previously paired will swap out for new shapes.
I tested the demo in August with a group of designers and developers from the SF Come
Out and Play Festival.

Fig. 2. Playtesters from the SF Come Out and Play Festival are playtesting Tomfoolery.

Tomfoolery was an abstract mechanics prototype that I developed to learn more
about networking with mobile devices and to see how people responded to the screen-
sharing requirement. From playtesting the game, I learned that players want more
continuity between gameplay rounds. Players also wanted more rewarding feedback
when they paired screens. One of the playtesters expressed that he felt a sense of panic
the entire game, which inspired me to pursue a slightly chaotic, fast-paced game
experiences for the first Localite game that I designed.

Pocket Playground, Spring 2013
Like Localite, Pocket Playground was conceived of as a set of simple, multiplayer
games for iOS devices. The concept took various old-school playground games such as
Tether Ball or and Foursquare and embedded them in digital play; playground balls
migrate from mobile screen to mobile screen and the screens’ edges define the
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8

boundaries of individual player domains. After implementing the foursquare playground
game on four iOS devices for Thesis Prep Class, I demonstrated the project as a proof of
concept for my thesis during demo night at the Interactive Media and Games Division
seminar on April 3, 2013. During the demo, players were able to roll a ball from screen to
screen with a tapping gesture, while preventing the ball from hitting the outer edges of
their screen space.

Fig. 3. Testers are playing foursquare across the screens of 4 devices.

While I considered the demo to be a success, it informed me of an important
design decision that I made for Localite; games within the Localite suite should
encourage players to use their screens in a collaborative manner by building bridges to
share objects. The foursquare game that I presented during demo night rewarded players
who hid their screens from other game participants. To explore the visceral effect of
using multiple screens as a continuous play space, I initial sought out to create Localite
games that rewarded players for exploring the continuous nature of their devices and
sharing phones as a collective set of windows into a shared game space.

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9

Bubble Game, Spring 2013
For Thesis Prep Class I created a simple two-player bubble popping game.
Players experienced one version of the game on two iPod Touches and the other version
was carried out in physical space, using real bubbles. I created this juxtaposition to
answer questions regarding mediation of experience through a digital device. I wanted to
better understand how the tactile experience of blowing a bubble might translate to digital
space. In addition, I was interested in exploring if the nature of collaboration between the
two players was different for the physical version of the game versus the digital version.

Fig 4. Testers are playing the bubble game across multiple mobile devices.

From this experiment I concluded that Localite games should not aim to directly
recreate a tactile experience that exists in the real world. Instead, Localite games should
play to the strengths of the game devices, by enabling drawing or pinching gestures on
the screen or integrating more visual feedback into the game experience. The Bubble
Game experiment also enabled me to discuss the strengths of social play. Social,
multiplayer games can be conducive to generating emergent social and play behaviors.
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10

The Bubble Game led me to the conclusion that the mechanics of Localite games should
cultivate emergent social behaviors through ambiguity in mechanics.

The Crowd, Spring 2013
The Crowd is a two-person, micro-game that I made for Thesis Prep class. During
gameplay two adjacent players control the keys L, O, V, and E, which enable them to
locate and reunite with each other in the middle of a crowd. The chaotic nature of the
game requires the two players to communicate and upon finding each other in the crowd,
cheesy love tunes play and a red spotlight shines on the two player characters.

Because of its simplicity and singular theme, The Crowd was well received by
players. In addition, the game did not dictate instructions for how players should
collaborate to find each other in the crowd; therefore, collaborative techniques emerged
during gameplay. Localite mechanics invite a similar kind of emergent social
collaboration between players.

Fig. 5. A screen shot of The Crowd shows the end state when two players find eachother
within a crowd of anonymous characters.

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11

Futurebound, USC Collegeology Games
Futurebound is an iOS and web-game for middle schoolers that strives to create
playful ways to understand the systems essential to accessing higher education. As a
designer and developer for Futurebound, I was able to participate in the user-centric
design approach, wherein we ran a junior design camp in a middle school and tested the
game numerous times with middle schoolers. This process expanded my understanding of
the rigorous playtesting process, which I applied to the development of Localite.
Futurebound also introduced me to general usability design challenges relating to
developing for mobile platforms. Because Localite was developed for mobile devices as
well, I applied the lessons from Futurebound to its development.

Reality Ends Here, USC Fall 2011
As a game runner and experience designer for Reality Ends Here, I was fortunate
to observe various ways in which games can exercise the curiosity and creativity of their
players. While the mechanics of forming “deals” for points in Reality is just one part of
the game’s multi-dimensional alternate reality experience, they demonstrate the ways in
which connectivity bridges (fig 6) between discrete objects can become a generative tool.
Localite games are not designed to be a brainstorming tool in the way that the Reality
deck functions, but—like Reality—connectivity bridges aim to add context to discrete
information objects.

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In the case of Reality these information-objects are prompt cards whereas Localite
information objects take the form of dynamic screens or windows into a collective game
world.

Fig. 6. The cards of the Reality deck connect via nodes on each edge of the card.

Eclectic Potatoes, V1
The first version of Eclectic Potatoes was a 3-20 person party game that asked
players to seek out others with complementary “nodes” on their devices. Eclectic
Potatoes was about a band of electric potatoes. Its core mechanic was a mash-up of
SpaceTeam, Hot Potato and Marco-Polo. It was a cooperative matchmaking game
wherein players pair the edges of their mobile devices in order to transfer energy from
one electric potato to another. By passing electricity through each other’s mobile devices
(iOS/Android) and on to “power the show,” players were challenged to become the
greatest band in all potato-dom. If a player held on to her potato’s energy for too long the
potato would become French fries, thus eliminating that player from the game round.

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13

In version one of Eclectic Potatoes, each player had their own potato character
that was customizable (fig. 7). The potato was “plugged into” conductive nodes on the
sides of the screen. Electricity passed from one device to the next when players paired the
correct nodes such that they completed the object pictured as the node. Because all
players were in the same band, they were challenged to build collective performance
healthy by connect to other players. Players also managed the health of their personal
potatoes by balancing energy. The game challenges players to find each other by any
means possible to link matching nodes (fig. 8).

Fig. 7. A customizable potato character was featured prominently on the mobile devices.
The player balanced both performance health and potato health during the game.
Fig 8. Matching nodes, according to color, allowed players to pass energy between
devices.

I designed Eclectic Potatoes to be a game that changes depending on the physical
context in which was played. I also designed the game around my lack of confidence in
real-time networked games on mobile devices. Many technical questions surrounded my
project because, at the time I proposed my thesis, no one else had created the kind of
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cross screen play that I sought to develop through my project. I have played several real-
time networked games but the kind of low-latency effects that our spatially continuous
design goals afforded prevented me from immediately pursuing the exchange of physics
objects and other highly dynamic objects between multiple screens. The node-exchange
system for electric potatoes served as a conservative approximation of what I might be
able to accomplish technically, given the lofty experiments I initially proposed, with
pouring liquid from one device to the next.

Early Playtesting in the SCA Courtyard & Ergonomics Issues
I wasn’t immediately able to playtest Eclectic Potatoes because I first needed to
develop the network architecture that enabled real time communication between mobile
devices. I had previously prototyped with built in functionality offered by the Unity3D
game engine but the scale of my project required custom network architecture. When
Eclectic Potatoes was finally playable, I tested it in a casual setting by approaching
students in the SCA courtyard (fig. 9). Playtesters enjoyed the novelty of the game but I
noticed clear usability issues with the cross-screen calibration. First of all, most people
have cases on their smartphones and the act of pinching or dragging across multiple
devices was not a seamless gesture when the devices had cases on them. One person
generally performed the pinching gesture that paired the electric potato’s nodes, which
proved to be awkward. Pinching between the potatoes was awkward because both players
have their own devices but only one person could perform the necessary action to
complete the game objects. Our playtesting efforts suggested that we were on the right
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track for bringing people together around devices, but the fact that we were integrating a
technical calibration effort into the game mechanic was fundamentally flawed.

Fig. 9. Two playtesters in the SCA courtyard enjoyed the interpersonal aspects of the
game but had a lot of trouble with the calibration system.

While version 1 of Eclectic Potatoes was an interesting experiment, it worked
against my goals of starting a company because many people deemed a game of its
proportion economically unviable. The game required three or more players, which was a
barrier for entry to playing the game. I ultimately abandoned the first version of Eclectic
Potatoes because it didn’t serve Localite as a company, the usability issues seemed like a
major hurdle and we developed more technical breakthroughs with cross-screen play than
I had originally predicted.

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Stevens Institute Pitch: Product vs. Feature
In designing Eclectic Potatoes V1, there was a large focus on embedding the technical
calibration across multiple screens into the game mechanics. I explored various
calibration methods to let players use the spatial properties, such as connected edges,
mechanically during gameplay. I wanted to make players feel like they were connected
through screen-based game windows. I described this connectivity in my proposal with
the following text:
Connectivity between devices will encourage players to imagine the negative
space between devices as part of the game world. For example, a Localite
game about alchemy might require players to exchange various ingredients. A
player is invited to imagine that during the exchange of a liquid across
devices, the digital liquid simulation passes through negative space in order to
appear on the receiver’s devices. These kinds of object exchanges between
devices should feel rich, not because they mimic some interaction in the real
world but because the exchange is novel and exciting within the context of the
game. (Lotko, 2013)

I was invited to pitch Localite during The Stevens Institute Center for Innovation
Student Showcase. We previously determined that it would be difficult to demo Eclectic
Potatoes in its current state at the pitch session so we made a tech demo. The tech demo
let the user send a circle from one screen to the next by calibrating the spatial relationship
between the devices with a swipe sync gesture (fig. 10). The user could reposition the
devices in any orientation and the ball would make its way, with significant lag, from one
device to the next.

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Fig. 10. Users can swipe across multiple mobile devices to calibrate their spatial
relationship, a gesture that we named “The Swipe Sync.”

The pitching session gave us a good opportunity to try something outside of the
constraints of Eclectic Potatoes gameplay but it was also the first indication that I was
maybe spending too much time thinking about calibration. I was excited about the idea of
embedding the calibration between devices in gameplay mechanics so that it felt natural.
However, our feedback from the Steven’s Institute event indicated that what we demoed
was more of a feature rather than an actual product. Instead of designing mechanics
around calibration, we took a step back and refocused our efforts on interpersonal
exchange between players. During this process of redesign, we came up with Eclectic
Potatoes V2, which was ultimately what I showed at the Halloween open house and at
winter show.

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Eclectic Potatoes V2
Eclectic Potatoes V2 (fig. 11) was about an epic battle of the bands. Players could
build their own potato band and rock out for glory. The game’s synchronous play across
the screens of multiple mobile devices let player engage in face-to-face fun. The game
was intended to appeal to casual players who enjoy tabletop games. The game mechanics
were inspired by the battle of the bands scene in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Dir.
Wright).

Fig. 11. Players send electricity from one screen to the next as a battle of the bands
mechanic.

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Core Gameplay Goals
The game will be accessible to new players but accommodate deep play.
Players should be able to make it through 1 game round in 5 minutes, thus
keeping it accessible to casual players who play games in short bursts. The system will be
modular, broken up into 3 phases. As players learn to strategize between these 3 phases
and leverage their relationships with other players, they will gain a better understanding
for how to strategize during the game.

Players will communicate competitively and cooperatively for success in the game.
Localite games require players to be present, to engage with each other in novel
and interesting ways. We want Eclectic potatoes to encourage emergent behavior
between players as they develop new social strategies to cooperate and compete during
gameplay.

Halloween Open House: Private and Public Screen Space
Feedback during the Halloween open house event was largely positive. The game
wasn’t entirely playable but, unlike the previous version of Eclectic Potatoes, people
understood what kind of gameplay feeling we were designing. Attendees of the open
house were generally excited about the idea of private and public screen space as players
hide their screens and show them during different gameplay rounds. We hadn’t fully
fleshed out the mechanics of the game but our subsequent design meetings focused on the
excitement around revealing secret information.

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We imagined Eclectic Potatoes V2 to be a new kind of tabletop game experience.
The modularity of the game devices enabled players to hide their screens during a
strategy phase and reveal screens for a battle phase. We wanted strategizing in Eclectic
Potatoes to feel like a game of poker with all the dynamic fun of touch screens. This idea
of modularity presented itself as a design solution for my continuous rationalization for
having multiple screens. I felt like my design process was constantly fighting against
mechanics that would best be played on a single device. The modularity of devices in
Eclectic Potatoes V2, with the idea of private and public screen space, presented an
opportunity for refining a game mechanic that was perfectly suited for modularity.

Winter Show: Grounding User Experience and the Eclectic Potato Time Capsule
During the Thanksgiving break, I created a breakfast simulator that allowed the
user to pour salt or pepper from a shaker onto eggs (fig. 12). The salt and pepper particles
would fall “through” the negative space between the two devices as a kind of magic trick.
I imagined a new kind of pop-up book that let kids enact story events as they followed a
story from page to page. This demo was the inspiration for the next phase of my thesis,
called StoryPops.
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Fig. 12. This image of the breakfast simulator demo depicts salt falling onto the tablet
below with potential story text and an egg.

I presented the demo in thesis class just a week before the winter show and
received very positive feedback. In the context of discussing my new form of pop-up
book, Mark Bolas brought up the idea of synectics, which is a problem solving
methodology involving making the strange familiar and the familiar strange (Synectics).
This idea led me to pursue “magical” exchanges between multiple devices in the pop-up
book format that subvert the expectations of a user in ways that are surprising and
playful.

I decided to include the breakfast simulator in my station during Winteractive
show. While it was becoming obvious that Eclectic Potatoes was clunky and over
designed, the breakfast simulator was simple and people immediately understood the
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focus of my thesis. Attendees of the winter show pointed out that part of the magic of my
breakfast simulator came from the natural interaction with the saltshaker. The gesture that
the user performs with the handheld devices, which depicts a saltshaker, mimics the
action that you would perform with a real salt shaker in the physical world. The breakfast
simulator was accessible and intuitive and I was overwhelmingly encouraged by advisors
to run with the idea.

I realized that pursuing this new kind of pop-up book, what I now call a StoryPop,
would prevent me from being able to develop Eclectic Potatoes further. I put Eclectic
Potatoes in a time capsule and switched over to rapidly developing StoryPops in
December because I ultimately felt like StoryPops served my initial design values much
better that Eclectic Potatoes. StoryPops let readers share stories and disrupted the parental
convention of handing a child a tablet to play with as a solitary diversion. StoryPops let
me further remove my design process from technically complex calibration techniques
and multi-screen rationalization but it still allowed me to cultivate the sense of cross-
screen magic that I’ve been chasing for the past year.

Stone Soup: a StoryPop
The previous two phases on my thesis lacked a core essence statement to guide the
project. To explain the concept and goals of a StoryPop
1
to my team, I wrote the
following essence statement: For thousands of years, story time has been largely passive

1

Localite Games Inc, the company I started is working on Stone Soup, a particular story, which is being
told in the format of a StoryPop, a new way of sharing stories across multiple devices. Or in other words,
Localite Games is the who, Stone Soup is the what, a StoryPop is the how and the Funtervention is the
why.

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for listeners. StoryPops are breaking passivity by empowering young readers with a
dynamic prop device to play with their favorite stories. StoryPops are reinventing
collaborative reading with the use of multiple paired mobile devices and little bit of
magic. The dynamic prop device contextualizes each illustrated page of an interactive
tablet book to encourage role-play and creative elaboration of story events.

Stone Soup, the first StoryPop, follows the classical folktale of Stone Soup and
depicts the story characters as raccoons that find themselves in a strange city. Upon
entering an alleyway, they ask the animals they find there for food and shelter but they
are turned away. They explain to the animals that they will make soup out of stones,
which engages the curiosity of the selfish animals. The raccoons convince the animals to
add various ingredients and the soup is ultimately made possible through the generosity
of the animals in the alleyway. The previously selfish animals give the raccoons a place
to sleep after dinner and a celebration.

I selected the story of Stone Soup for my StoryPop because I wanted to follow the
success of my saltshaker demo and let young readers add ingredients to their own,
personal stone soups. Elementary school classes often make their own stone soups after
reading the story together, and I wanted to build on young readers’ general familiarity
with the story. I also wanted to prove that if Stone Soup, a pre-existing story, could be
adapted to my StoryPop format, other stories might be adaptable as well.

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Each digital page of Stone Soup is paired with a second-screen interaction that lets
the reader either enact story events or roleplay with story characters (fig. 13). The dual-
screen format gives young readers a way to interact with the story while a sibling, parent
or friend is reading to them. As the reader progresses from page to page, the interaction
on the handheld device updates with the page change to give a more user-friendly
experience and to ensure that the correct interaction is paired with the current page.

February Advisor Feedback and In-Home User Testing Research
I spent December and January coming up with 10-20 cross-screen interactions
that would surprise young readers and give them a sense of agency in the storytelling
experience. I met with all of my advisors and playtested with 3 groups of kids in the same
week to gather feedback. Each playtesting group consisted of two siblings, with their age
ranging between 4 to 10 years old.

I was able to find 3 parents with 2 kids who invited me into their homes to test my
project with their kids. Since the playtest came after only about a month and a half of
working on Stone Soup, I was interested in observing how they naturally interacted with
the device, learning more about other games and books they play with and seeing how the
dynamics between two kids would affect the reading experience. I received and
integrated feedback under four general themes from advisors and from playtesting.

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Should I use the second, handheld device as an extension of the screen versus a prop
controller?

Both my advisors and playtesters indicated the the strongest interactions were
ones that used the handheld device as a physical controller, taking in accelerometer data
and letting the user shake, rattle and pour. The metaphor of pouring and shaking physics-
enabled objects from the handheld device was accessible. Multi-step interactions like
spinning a dial generated a fair amount of confusion. They required my assistance to
figure out how to use the dial. Once the dial released a physics-enabled “marble,” the
interaction became easy for users to carry out. In addition, the version of Stone Soup that
I playtested included a “spy glass” mechanic that the reader manipulated on the tablet.
The view through the spyglass was displayed on the handheld device. This change in
mode of interaction, from smaller device as controller to larger device as controller,
generated confusion because the handheld device acted as a controller prop on all other
pages.

I took this feedback into consideration and made all of the cross-screen
interactions a one step process that can be manipulated with a mechanical movement
(shaking, pouring, blowing) or a secondary touch-based movement. I also reduced
confusion by making the smaller, handheld device the primary mode of input. Because
half of the kids I playtested with had the devices resting on a table, I concluded that I
should give users two different methods of interacting with the handheld device: (1) a
physics based tilt/shake or blowing into the microphone and (2) a touch-based
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26

manipulation of game objects on the screen. Users can opt to manipulate objects with the
touch screen or with mechanical movements of the device at any time.

Is it confusing that the perspective of the second, handheld device shifts as it becomes
either a means to role-play with story characters or a means to play a “god” figure and
enact story events (that happen to characters)?

My conversations with advisors suggested that this might be a source of
confusion. When it came down to playtestings, the kids didn’t notice or express any
confusion with regards to the role that the “wand” device played in the story. Playtesters
were more excited by the novelty of the interactions and did not scrutinize the role of the
wand. While I’m seeking to make a finished product, I’ve also sought to maintain a spirit
of experimentation with my thesis. I concluded that it would be much more interesting
from an experimental perspective to explore the potential for storytelling across devices if
I didn’t constrain the role of the handheld device. I decided not to pick one relationship
between the story and the wand (role play or play “god”) because users didn’t express
concern and I wanted to experiment with the StoryPop format of storytelling further.

Should I remove the user’s agency over the spatial relationship between devices or
should I pick one simple calibration paradigm between devices?
During my process of experimentation with StoryPops mechanics, I developed
several ways of making the two devices aware of each other, in terms of their spatial
relationship. The first method of device awareness used a slider on the tablet to
manipulate the position of the handheld device. I then developed a “button” selection
Lotko

27

method that let the user select one active position from several possible positions on the
tablet. These positions referenced where the mobile device would be oriented. Only one
position could be selected at any time. The third method did not give the user any agency
with regards to the possible spatial relationship between the devices. Instead, it dictated
where the user should align her device for visual fidelity between the two.

After testing a few calibration paradigms between the devices, I concluded that it
is actually more user friendly, for kids especially, to take away the agency of determining
the spatial relationship between devices. I also observed that there wasn’t a loss in magic
for the interaction when the system was deterministic about the devices’ spatial
relationship. The kids I playtested with all aligned the devices in a way to generate visual
fidelity without any prompting from the game system or from the playtesting moderator.
For example, playtesters didn’t express any significant concern when snow from the
snow machine on page one didn’t fall according to the physical layout of the devices (fig.
13).

Lotko

28

Fig. 13. To demonstrate what I mean by visual fidelity, observe the difference in
positioning of the device-diagrams above. In one image, the devices are lined up such
that the arrow crosses an edge to a corresponding edge where it meets the rest of the
arrow. The right side of the image depicts devices that are not line-up “appropriately.”

During each of my playtests, kids verbally indicated that there was an implied
spatial relationship and lined up the device accordingly. When they aligned the devices
they often made comments like, “oh it goes here,” which indicated a puzzle-solving
attitude about the spatial relationship. In my revisions to the project after playtesting, I
eliminated all user-driven calibration.

If a passive way for the devices to change their calibrated spatial relationship
existed, then it might make sense to explore spatially specific interactions like pouring
objects onto different sides of the tablet. Throughout all of my prototyping and
development efforts, I did not invent a way for the devices to passively change their
digital spatial relationship in accordance with their physical spatial relationship. The
methods of calibration that I tested with kids required active input on the part of the user,
which was ultimately too confusing and only acted to convolute the core cross-device
experience with clunky UI.

Should I introduce a new cross-screen interaction on each page or should I select a few
strong interactions that can be reused throughout the book?

Although playtesters responded well to UI cues, I decided to reduce the variety of
ways that users can manipulate the handheld device. My conversations with advisors
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29

supported this decision. I reduced the methods of input into 4 basic kinds, based on order
of frequency of usage in the StoryPop: (1) Tilting the device to pour, (2) Shaking the
device to rattle something, (3) blowing into the device’s microphone and (3) moving the
device with a stirring like motion. The design challenge for reducing variety of input
presented me with the challenge of cultivating novelty on each page despite the
consistency in mode of input. In other words, I needed to make the effect of pouring,
shaking and blowing new and exciting for each page that the user performed that gesture.

I frequently returned to the pop-up book metaphor when redesigning Stone Soup.
In the case of pop-up books, the user performs the same action--the turning of a page--but
an entirely different outcome ensues after each page turn. The way each page pops up and
the 3D form that it creates is novel and exciting. The page turn lets the user feel like she
is creating the 3D form directly through her actions. My process of design for Stone Soup
has sought to embed feelings of excitement, anticipation and participation in each page.
While the user may be enacting a familiar gesture like blowing into the microphone, I
have sought to give the user a magical new response each time a cross-screen gesture is
reused.

Conclusions
With a user-centric focus in mind, I did away with complex, multi-step
interactions in favor of the interactions that were immediately obvious to the user. I
designed interactions that would elicit a visceral response because of the way they
mimicked natural interactions in the physical world. The tactile nature of pouring objects
Lotko

30

from one screen to the next served my initial project goals better than previous phases of
my thesis.
Throughout the different stages of my thesis, I sought to find new ways of
bringing players and users together around multiple mobile devices. I felt too constrained
by developing game mechanics, so I altered my course of production dramatically and
developed a new form of open-ended play with stories. The immediacy of response
between devices and the lack of tutorialization for how to manipulate paired devices
strengthened my project. The lighthearted and playful nature of my project alos served
my funtervention values. I ultimately grounded the form of my thesis in the familiarity of
kids’ books and added a playful twist that celebrates the power of networked mobile
devices.

Lotko

31

Bibliography
Lotko, Anna. Localite. 2013. TS. University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Dir. Edgar Wright. Perf. Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth
Winstead, Kieran Culkin. Universal, 2010. Film

“Synectics.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 24 February
2014. Web. 3 March. 2014.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together. New York: Basic Books, 2012. Print.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Localite explores new paradigms of multi‐user play across the screens of multiple mobile devices. Each Localite project encourages real‐time participation through play with devices that often construct social barriers. While the content of networked devices can reach far and wide across geographical boundaries, spatially specific relationships between devices and the boundaries of their screens has remained largely unexplored. As we surround ourselves with more and more digital displays, our need for tactile and spatial relationships between displays will surely grow. My thesis proposes that spatial awareness between devices serves our natural desire for tangibility and provides new opportunities for emotional presence with multi‐user experiences.

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A second summer

Asset Metadata

Creator Lotko, Anna (author)

Core Title Localite

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 05/01/2014

Defense Date 04/17/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag digital book,digital pop‐up book,Interactive Media,iPad app,OAI-PMH Harvest,Stone stoup

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Advisor Anderson, Steven F. (committee chair), Essen, Mark (committee member), Fullerton, Tracy (committee member), Hunicke, Robin (committee member)

Creator Email annaklotko@gmail.com,lotko@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-409520

Unique identifier UC11296323

Identifier etd-LotkoAnna-2486.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-409520 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-LotkoAnna-2486-0.pdf

Dmrecord 409520

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Lotko, Anna

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA