RealCoins: A Case Study of Enhanced Model Driven Development for Pervasive Games

Model Driven Development (MDD) and Domain Specific Modeling (DSM) have been widely used in information system domains and achieved success in many open or in-house scenarios. But its application in the game domain is seldom and immature. In our research, we identified three issues that should be considered carefully in order to play the strength of MDD in the game development environment to a larger extend: 1) structured domain analysis should be done to assure the size and familiarity of the domain; 2) adapted process should be designed to save cost and support evolution; and 3) proper tools (especially language workbenches) should be evaluated and utilized to ease DSM tasks and accelerate iterations. In this paper, we explain these three issues and illustrate our solutions to them by presenting the development details (both technical and procedural) of one pervasive game case. We evaluate the gains and costs by involving MDD into the game development process. We reflect on the issues we have met, and discuss possible future works as well.an open access journa

Issues related to Development of Wireless Peer-to-Peer Games in J2ME

This paper describes and discusses challenges related to development of peer-to-peer games in J2ME using the available Bluetooth API (JSR82). By using Bluetooth on wireless devices, new types of personal network peer-topeer games can be developed. In this paper, we present a classification framework for wireless peer-to-peer games that divides types of games into two different dimensions. The first dimension groups games according to the user interaction patterns and the second dimension groups games according to how data is updated. Further, the paper investigates problems that must be solved before peer-to-peer games using the existing Bluetooth API in J2ME can be developed. Here issues related to the Bluetooth API and limitations in the Bluetooth standard are discussed. Finally, the classification framework is used to reveal what types of games that can be implemented using current J2ME virtual machines and current Bluetooth API. The results presented in this paper are based on experiences from development of cooperative peer-to-peer applications for mobile phones using a framework called Peer2ME

Using a Mobile, Agent-Based Environment to Support Cooperative Software Processes

Cooperative Software Engineering (CSE) means that large-scale, software development and maintenance can be conducted in a distributed organisation or across organisations. CSE can be characterised by distributed process fragments, partly shared workspaces, cooperation planning, and frequent interactions in intra/inter-workspaces. To support CSE processes, we must deal with dynamic, unpredictable processes as well as stable, repeatable processes with totally different characteristics. Traditional workflow and process systems offer good support for stable, pre-planned processes, providing user agendas, invocation of tools, presentation of process state etc. Multi-agent systems are well suited to model and support users involved in cooperative processes. By combining these two technologies, processes with characteristics similar to cooperative software engineering processes can be modelled and supported more completely. The thesis presents a framework called CAGIS Process Centred Environment (PCE), for combining a workflow system with a multi-agent system. These are the main parts of the thesis: - A multi-agent architecture to support cooperative processes. This architecture is particularly useful in modelling and providing support for cooperative activities where software agents act on behalf of the user. The design and implementation of this architecture is described. -A workflow system to support distributed mobile processes. This workflow system allows processes to be fragmented into smaller sub-processes that can be distributed over several workspaces and moved between these workspaces. -A gluing framework to specify the interaction between the workflow system and the multi-agent architecture. The gluemodel defines the relationships between software agents and process fragments (sub-processes), and a GlueServer is used as a middleware between a workflow tool and a multi-agent system. Results from applying the GlueModel framework on a cooperative software engineering (CSE) process is also described. - A Evaluation of the framework by modelling three practical cases: - A conference organising process is modelled in three different process environments (including our own), and evaluated according to modelling completeness and adaptability to process changes. - A CSE scenario describing a software and maintenance process in a Norwegian software company is modelled to show usefulness of the gluing framework. - A project organisation scenario used to demonstrate how software agents can be used in CAGIS Process Centred Environment to deal with evolution of distributed, fragmented workflow models