ConneXions

In the near future, the RFIDs are going to be omnipresent, and used across everywhere.
Playing cards could also have RFIDs associated with it.
With technology advancing at such a rapid pace, the idea of surface computing becoming ubiquitous seems a reality.

This is an Idea for a technology based Card Game for children in Rural India.
Thus the scenario is a case in say 2020, where the children in rural India have access to technology in the schools.

Children in Rural India are often told stories from the great epics Mahabharata and the Ramayana and other religious texts. The idea is to enhance the story telling experience using technology and a lot of visuals. The another lying idea is to improve the knowledge about Indian Mythology amongst the children. Of late the trend of telling stories have stopped and hence the children do not get to know the stories that we have grown up with.

People are around a central table that is comprised of a matchbox, a playground , and the stack, that has all the set of cards in the deck. The idea is to match the set of cards one after the other. Every Myth card has a Character card that it is matched onto. The match can be found by placing these two match cards in the area of the table marked as Match box.



There are two set of cards. One the Myth set of card, and one the Character set of card. The game is played with 2 or more people.

The Myth Cards, will be comprising of myths associated with the particular God. The myths are in the form of visual clues and not in forms of text. This is so that the children can go above the reading barrier, and make ConneXions based on the visual clues.



If the correct match is made, the Matchbox plays a story with the ConneXions between the Myth and the Character.

The players are initially given 7 cards. The player have to pick from the stack of cards and if they do not need the card, throw it back in the playground. Any player can pick up any card from the playground at his/her turn.

If the set of cards in the stack are finished, the cards from the playground are taken and shuffled again and kept on the stack.

A bonus point is given if there is a match with three cards. A myth and Two Character Cards.
For Eg: If the Character cards, are of the elephant God Ganesh, and the Lord Shiva, One myth can find a story between them all. Thus this is a bonus point.

Who wins? The person who is able to tell the maximum stories or in other words, make the maximum ConneXions.

The War on Terror

Thoughts behind a computer based game on "The war of Terror":
Can a game have multi-player model? Can each of the players have separate task to accomplish in-order to win the game?
Can a villain of a game win? Can a villain have their own set of goals and that is negative.

About the game:
This is a role based game. The player(s) selects the role every-time they start a game. The game works on a multi-player model.
There are multiple aims of the game, depending on the role of the people playing the game.
A person can be a paramedics person, a FBI /CIA official, Terrorist (the bad guy), a soldier. These are the main characters in the stage.

The aim of the paramedics person is to help lives without getting hit by the attacks themselves.
The aim of the soldiers is to track down the terrorists and shoot them down, without dying themselves.
The aim of the FBI / CIA officials is to find hidden clues and hints and other information from various sources and give information to the army to catch it.
The aim of the terrorist i to create more mayhem and cause more trouble. His aim would be to destroy the city and kill more lives.

The game is based on the premise of fighting terror on planet earth. There could be various ways in which a person is being a part of the help from terror. This comes out of a need that we often fail to help in the times of the humanitarian needs when a terror strikes at a particular place.

Its a multi-player game with people able to share resources. Multiple nations can get together to attack against a terrorist organization, and similarly, multiple terrorist organizations can target one or many nations. Information can be shared from across countries officials.
This because some countries have a very good land army, and some may have an excellent supply of ambulances.
It builds on the theme of sharing resources.

Age group: 15-30 years.
Number of players required: Minimum 1, Maximum: can be any number.

GamePlay:
Scenario:
At the beginning of the game, a overview of the situation is given to the person. The player selects their role from the prompt that is given to them.
After the player has selected the role in which they want to play, a player enters the situation of the game in that position.
For example : An attack has happened in the downtown area of the town. The special forces are called in. If there are multiple people who play , then the computer is not involved. If there is a shortage of players then apart from the role that is played by the player, the remaining players are played by the computer. The different players select the roles and start the game.

The idea is to have the terrorist killed, save more lives, or kill a certain number of people.
In all the cases all the people are also playing simultaneously.

How do the people playing the game win?
Role: CIA/FBI Officer :- The clues are connected and able to spot the target terrorist correctly. This is only possible by connecting the clues that the player keeps getting. If an Officer fires at a terrorist / or a terrorist place, they gain points. If they accidentally fire at the paramedics, they loose points.

Role: Paramedics: If they are able to help the specified injured people to safety and in the process let minimum lives die they win. This depends entirely on the fact that how many were the initial casualty.

Role: Soldier : If they are able to track down the terrorist, find out where they are, and combat with them without themselves dying, they win. If the set of terrorist is more than one, the player has to kill all of them to win.

Role: Terrorist : If the player is able to kill all the people in a certain time frame or cause maximum carnage in a stipulated time.

All the tasks are time based. If a soldier is not able to kill in certain time, he gets negative points.
Similar things can be arranged for the other roles.