Supervisor

Suitable for

Abstract

Massive local multi-player games in which large numbers of co-located players interact simultaneously within a single game environment are increasingly common at experimental game play events (see for example, Bennett Foddy’s Speed Chess - www.foddy.net/2014/09/speed-chess/ in which 16 people in two teams simultaneously play a single game of chess). Such systems currently require dedicated controllers - Foddy’s implementation uses 16 USB controller - limiting their use at many events. This project will address this limitation by developing a system to allow players to use their smartphones as controllers within local multi-player games hosted on public displays and public engagement events. The final system should integrate with one or more existing open-source game engines (such as love2d.org) and allow games to seamlessly incorporate multiple players, handling the connection and disconnection of smartphones in real-time (perhaps through a native app on the smartphone, or more readily, through WebSockets running in a web app), and making the minimal installation demands on the user before they can start playing (perhaps by having them connect to the game through a local Wi-Fi network).

Prerequisites: Some experience of C++ desirable, but not essential if the student is keen to develop this within the project.