Shapes, marbles and pebbles: template-based content creation for location-based games

This paper presents the TOTEM framework for supporting the content creation and structuring for location-based games. Shapes (templates), Marbles (instances) and Pebbles (raw data) build the conceptual background while two integrated tools support the overall workflow: TOTEM.Designer, a web-application that allows for desktop-based authoring and TOTEM.Scout, a mobile app that allows for in-situ authoring. The TOTEM framework supports different user roles and allows inexperienced users to collect and create content. All data can be exported and easily added to external games

Gaming platform for running games on low-end devices

Low cost networked consumer electronics (CE) are widely used. Various applications are offered, including IPTV, VoIP, VoD, PVR and games. At the same time the requirements of computer games by means of CPU and graphics performance are continuously growing. For pervasive gaming in various environments like at home, hotels, or internet cafes, it is beneficial to run games also on mobile devices and modest performance CE devices such as set top boxes. EU IST Games@Large project is developing a new cross-platform approach for distributed 3D gaming in local networks. It introduces novel system architecture and protocols used to transfer the game graphics data across the network to end devices. Simultaneous execution of video games on a central server and a novel streaming approach of the 3D graphics output to multiple end devices enable the access of games on low cost devices that natively lack the power of executing high-quality games. \ua9 Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2010