Zookeeper Proposal (Artifact)

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1 "Zookeeper" Proposal Andrew Lambert Table of Contents Introduction/Features o Visualization The Metaphor: Zookeeping! pg 2 Why You Are the Zookeeper pg 2 o Points Community Design pg 3 So, What Behaviors Should Be Rewarded? pg 3 Three Point Types pg 4 Promoting Casual Play with Bounds pg 4 Scenarios & Personas o Jane Wygot (One Player, Non-Competitive) pg 5 o Greg Mader (Multiple Players, Non-Competitive) pg 5-6 o Leslie Hays (One Player, Non-Competitive) pg 6-7 Cost Analysis pg 8 Pros/Cons Page pg 8 Visual Mockup Page pg 8-13 Variations/Different Modes pg 14 Competitors pg 14 References pg 15-16

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Transcript of Zookeeper Proposal (Artifact)

Page 1: Zookeeper Proposal (Artifact)

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"Zookeeper" Proposal

Andrew Lambert

Table of Contents

Introduction/Features

o Visualization

The Metaphor: Zookeeping! – pg 2

Why You Are the Zookeeper – pg 2

o Points

Community Design – pg 3

So, What Behaviors Should Be Rewarded? – pg 3

Three Point Types – pg 4

Promoting Casual Play with Bounds – pg 4

Scenarios & Personas

o Jane Wygot (One Player, Non-Competitive) – pg 5

o Greg Mader (Multiple Players, Non-Competitive) – pg 5-6

o Leslie Hays (One Player, Non-Competitive) – pg 6-7

Cost Analysis – pg 8

Pros/Cons Page – pg 8

Visual Mockup Page – pg 8-13

Variations/Different Modes – pg 14

Competitors – pg 14 References – pg 15-16

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Cat pointed out that our art resources are limited. If you can think of ways to cut down on

the graphical requirements, that would be helpful.

Introduction/Features

VISUALIZATION

The Metaphor: Zookeeping!

You--the player--are a small-time zookeeper for magical animals. Unfortunately, all the

critters have escaped from their habitats and made quite some distance while you weren't

watching! You're friends with all of them, so it shouldn't be hard to persuade them to

return--right?

The handy Indexter is a tool to track the progress of repopulating your zoo. As you walk,

you'll be able to see your progress in terms of geographic distance between you and the

critter that you're retrieving. By completing walking goals consistently, you will begin to

move quicker, and eventually catch up to the rogue zoo resident. Capturing a critter

represents achieving a walking milestone, in terms of consistently accomplishing your goals.

Finally, an encyclopedic entry will be added to the Indexter.

Next, the Indexter provides real-time and long term feedback about consistently

achieving your walking goals. What kind of analytics do we already have? So, your first

week of playing--the training week--will be used to establish a baseline for your walking

goals. You can manually override the Indexter's suggested goals at any time. The Indexter

will continually compare your accomplished goals with your baseline. Professor Richardson,

how should we set goals? (This probably has already been taken care of.)

You can easily curate your progress using the Indexter. Each action that you take or

event that you experience will be logged in the Indexter. You can also connect with other

zookeepers and reflect on your walking--I mean, zookeeping--experiences.

The Indexter provides access to the leaderboard. Consistently accomplishing walking

goals and participating in the community are the most revered traits in zookeeper culture,

so these players will be displayed proudly in separate leaderboards. You can read about

their walking experiences to motivate yourself, or submit a message seeking guidance. Your

own experiences might be compelling too, so leaderboards are reset each week.

If you ever decide to team up with other zookeepers, Indexter will facilitate all

communication, and track team statistics and goals. Indexter will encourage quality support

feedback from your teammates by rating everything with an "interestingness" metric,

similar to Flickr's.

As you travel, Indexter will point out features of areas, such as cities, that you pass

through. Recapturing renegade rascals is a pretty convenient excuse for sightseeing, right?

Maybe you'll want to visit again.

Refilling your zoo will impress managers of bigger zoos. They're always looking for

someone who knows how to handle sneaky critters. Even when you are hired at a bigger city's zoo, you are always welcome to return to your old home.

Why You Are the Zookeeper

The Fish 'n' Steps paper shows that people put significant effort into caring for pets--

sometimes more than caring for themselves. The animals that you capture represent caring

for yourself.

One persona that I developed was based off a SparkPeople member who was a "mother

of two dogs." One of her goals is to achieve greater accountability, but she loathes exercise.

I think that the Zookeeper metaphor will compel her to care for pets that represent herself,

and provide a distraction from the grind of exercise. See the "Jane Wygot" scenario.

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POINTS

Community Design

On the Yahoo! Design Patterns Library spectrum of competition, the Steps community

would be best characterized as the least competitive community--"caring competitive." In

other words, individual goals "coexist peacefully." Hence, there is no explicit competition in

the zookeeping metaphor.

There is conflicting research about whether to use leaderboards. The Yahoo! Design

Patterns Library doesn't recommend leaderboards for casual competitive communities.

However, Amy Jo Kim's "Putting the Fun in Functional: Applying Game Mechanics to

Functional Software" says to use leaderboards to show what behaviors and traits are

valued. So, leaderboards should be designed not to have sequential rankings, but to

categorize players showing desired behavior. SparkPeople labels members who were

nominated for their community involvement, personal accomplishments, or positive attitude

and places them onto a "featured members" page. Player nominations and the

interestingness metric are useful for finding players who show desirable behavior.

"Senior players in good standing" should be identified with labels, so that new players

can engage them for support, according to Yahoo! Design Patterns. Labels should be

established without ranking one better than the other. A user should be allowed to choose

whether to accept or decline the label. One leaderboard will show these labeled players.

In addition to capturing critters, the core gameplay of the zookeeping metaphor is built

on collectible achievements. This mechanism brings an "addictive quality that may compel

users to explore" content that they wouldn't otherwise. A portfolio of collectibles of varying

difficulty allows players to achieve and be recognized at all points in the game. All

achievements should be listed on Indexter for players to track.

Next, collectibles can be used to channel user behavior. "First time" achievements should

exist to encourage users to experiment, but reward the player with less currency than other

achievements. More difficult to earn achievements will keep players hooked in the long

term.

After a zoo is refilled, a player progresses to the next "named level"--a zoo of a bigger

city. Alternatively, "numbered levels" (e.g., level 5) could have been introduced. Named

levels are qualitative, and are therefore perceived as less competitive than easily

comparable numbers. Competition will be further reduced because the game will not

encourage players to compare each others' progress. This may happen outside of the game,

unfortunately.

So, What Behaviors Should Be Rewarded?

Encouraging certain player behaviors will determine the success of the zookeeper

concept. First, encouraging consistency of walking habits will effect health benefits for the

player. In the Steps application, meeting weekly individual goals and uploading every day

are examples of desired behaviors. Meeting weekly goals will be visualized as reduced

geographic distance between the zookeeper (player) and milestone ("big game" critter).

To establish consistent walking, consistent uploading is required. Each day, a player can

feed their animals. Missing a day will forego the opportunity to help their animals grow

more. This is described in more detail in the "Three Point Types" section below.

Next, the game will cheer on players who upload in "streaks," or upload each day. Each

time that a streak is built further, an animation for continuing the streak rewards the player.

(Think of the visualization on the TVs when you go bowling.) Next, uploading in streaks will

earn a multiplier for currency that the player receives during this period, like in bowling. So,

whatever currency is used for should be priced to be out of reach without streaks.

Second, encouraging teamplay will allow players to participate in a virtual support group.

The SparkPeople community demonstrates the power of virtual support groups in forming

healthy habits. In Steps, an individual player will only be allowed to move once per day. In

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a team, each team members' daily movement allows players to capture more "big game"

critters than working solo. Any better ideas? Reaching more milestones probably

undermines their value. Professor Richardson might be the person to ask.

Third, encouraging long-term usage of Steps will ensure that players reach the

termination stage of Prochaska's Transtheoretical Model of Behavioral Change. (The Fish 'n'

Steps paper explains this model.) In the termination stage, a player will have no chance of

relapsing to the behavior that sought to change. To accomplish this, each player's zoo has a

finite number of animals to recapture. Upon repopulating the zoo, a player can pick a new

zoo to refill using Google Maps. Each zoo has its own unique set of animals. For example, each set may offer a different class of animal.

Three Point Types

Three point types will encourage players to pursue their walking goals.

Achievements were discussed in the "Community Design" section. Completing each

achievement will reward the player with currency, which Indexter will track. The amount of

currency rewarded depends on the difficulty of the achievement. What should we be able to

do with currency?

As discussed in the "So, What Behaviors Should Be Rewarded?" section, a player is only

allowed to move and feed their recaptured critters once per day. Over time, an animal that

has constantly been fed will grow bigger. If they are neglected, animals will shrink to a

point. The Fish 'n' Steps paper shows that the game shouldn't negatively reinforce a player's

behavior. Otherwise, the player will quit.

"Interestingness" is a feedback quality metric from Flickr. Blogger Wesley Hein compiled what he and other bloggers think gets a picture selected for interestingness.

Views, internal and external to Flickr, of the photo

Number of comments on the photo, and also who comments on the photo

Tags applied to the photo

Flickr discussion groups in which the photo appears

Favorites, a.k.a Flickr bookmarking, of the photo Time varying behavior of the above factors

Interestingness could be adapted to Steps as a metric of rich team interaction. Elements

of interestingness include likes and comments on a team member's newsfeed items. What

other elements of interestingness should we use? We also want to discourage players from

purposely "grinding" for interestingness. Flickr's interestingness algorithm is secret sauce:

it's hidden from us. The teams with the most quality interactions should be featured on a

leaderboard to show the Steps community that this behavior is valued.

Promoting Casual Play with Bounds

Bounds must be placed to promote casual play.

The max number of steps that can be uploaded per day will be bounded a certain

percentage compared to the goal. For example, a 150% limit on a goal of 10,000 steps will

allow a player to record a max of 15,000 steps. This is to discourage excessive exercise,

which is unhealthy. The purpose of Steps is to promote healthy habit formation, not

overexercise. Should we store overflow points for anything? Professor Richardson, how

should these bounds be setup?

Cooldowns were previously introduced in the "So, What Behaviors Should Be Rewarded?"

section. According to the Insectopia paper, cooldowns introduce breaks into gameplay,

which makes play more casual.

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Scenarios & Personas (based on SparkPeople.com)

1. One Player, Non-Competitive

Name: Jane Wygot

Age: 33

Occupation: secretary, "mother" of two dogs

Computer Skills: Facebook user

Interests: her dogs

Goals: become "normal"

Motivation: father's deathbed wish for her to take care of herself

o Jane is an overweight, 33-year old divorced "mother" of two dogs. A tragic

event recently pushed Jane towards adopting a weight loss program. While on

his deathbed, Jane's obese father told her to care for herself better than he

did. After this event, Jane reflects on how she has always disliked that her

weight has made her feel like a pariah. She wants to feel happier, healthier,

and normal. Regardless, Jane feels great pressure to exercise after her

father's death. Jane knows that one element of weight loss is eating right. So,

she decides to explore the "healthy" section of the grocery store, and she is

captivated by an ad about tracking walking progress. Jane understands that

she needs to exercise, but historically has loathed it. Desperate, Jane decides

to try walking with her dogs as a distraction. This time, she is more focused

on her own goals, not her dogs'. After installing the Steps application, Jane is

compelled to retrieve the "poor, fluffy widdle" critters to the safe zoo. In

addition to her dogs, these zoo critters are also her pets, and she feels

accountable for them. After saving an animal, Jane enjoys seeing the critter

added to her encyclopedia as a metric of her growing accountability.

Eventually, the endorfins help Jane realize that exercise should be about

helping HERSELF, not satisfying social obligations. She thanks her dad for

giving her that initial push, and feels transformed.

2. Multiple Players, Non-Competitive

Name: Greg Mader

Age: 46

Occupation: Financial Risk Adviser

Computer Skills: Facebook user

Interests: unknown

Goals: become normal, fend off knee replacement

Motivation: fear of knee replacement (intervening in someone's body is very

personal)

o Greg is a 46-year old overweight man who has always felt held back by his

weight. One day, he consults with a knee surgeon, Dr. James, about knee

pain. After some tests, Dr. James sadly tells Greg that, unless he loses a

significant amount of weight, he will need knee replacements within 10 years.

The doctor suggests walking because of its low impact nature, and refers

Greg to a weight loss specialist. The specialist gives Greg some long-term

goals: get off the medication, increase your activity level, and drop down to

certain weights. Next, the specialist emphasizes the importance of tracking

progress, and hands Greg a Steps flier that he found in the University of

Michigan Hospital. The specialist tells Greg that he's briefly explored Steps

and thought its game format would motivate Greg. Desperate for solutions,

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Greg installs Steps. After establishing a baseline, Greg feels overwhelmed by

Indexter's automatic goal-setting. He feels like a quitter as he overrides the

recommended goals for three consecutive weeks. Greg feels like he needs

more time to adjust to his routine. Regardless, Indexter encourages Greg by

reminding him that each day he uploads, he has the opportunity to upgrade

his zoo. Lonely, Greg elects to join a team of zookeepers, and receives

currency for introducing himself and his goals to his teammates. He's

impressed by how friendly and encouraging everyone is, and wants to

contribute to his team's goals. When he accomplishes his goals, Greg wins

team awards to furnish his own zoo. What should he get? This is probably

graphically intensive. With each animal saved, Greg earns an entry for the

critter in his enyclopedia, and the team earns an entry in the team

encyclopedia, which has more comprehensive entries than an individual

encyclopedia. Additionally, each critter captured appears in a team zoo. The

team zoos are famous, big city zoos, like the San Francisco Zoo. I made this

"big city zoo" idea an individual way to progress. So, I need ideas on team

content. Despite his frustrating start to walking, Greg feels happy that he can

read through Indexter's journal of everything that he's accomplished. Greg

further curates what Indexter has logged of his journey. He loves meeting

new team members who are just beginning their weight loss programs and

encouraging them to persist. Players nominate Greg to be shown on the

"positive attitude" leaderboard, and Greg's interestingness metric helps him be offered this label.

3. One Player, Non-Competitive

Name: Leslie Hays

Age: 30

Occupation: Mother

Computer Skills: Resourceful enough to use Google

Interests: unknown

Goals: become normal

Motivation: couldn't fit into airplane seat

o Leslie is a 30-year old mom with two kids. She's decided that she needs to

lose weight, after an embarrassing incident where she couldn't fit into one

airplane seat. Leslie is resourceful, and begins searching the Internet for

weight loss tips. She finds information about adopting a walking program and

setting small goals, but she isn't sure where to start. She is referred to Steps

through a Facebook ad, as she visits a weight loss Facebook group. In her

first week of using Steps, Leslie enjoys being able to walk as much as she can

without any pressure. The application visualizes this baseline establishment

phase as a training camp zookeepers. After Indexter establishes a baseline,

the training camp is complete, and Indexter suggests goals for Leslie. Steps

visualizes these goals as the process of recapturing a friendly animal. For

example, Leslie must complete her first weekly goal to make food to lure the

runaway critter. Leslie enjoys the irony of thinking that she's making an

animal food while she's really walking. When about to finish the recapturing

process, Leslie is relieved that the game doesn't force her to physically harm

the critter, but simply refriend it. Next, Leslie likes to spend her hard-earned

money--from participation and zookeeping--to customize the appearance of

her zoo. This previous sentence is outdated and probably too much graphical

work. How should currency be used? After refilling her zoo, Leslie is able to

choose another zoo on Google Maps to refill. Overall, Leslie feels like she

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forgets about the grind of exercise. When she begins feeling the benefits of exercise, Leslie becomes intrinisically motivated to exercise.

Cost Analysis

I'm not an art expert, so beware

Most estimates are based on "Bigfoot Challenge" document:

o drawing characters -- 14-20 hrs

number of characters: 120-150

o draw Indexter -- 8-10 hrs

o convert drawings to digital format -- 18-20 hrs

o developing encyclopedia content -- 5-9 hours

o building game mechanics -- 11-16 hrs

o testing the game mechanics/design -- 25-30 hrs

o refining game mechanics based on test results -- 10-15 hrs

o programming game -- 40-70 hrs

Pros/Cons

Pros

o People make great efforts for their pets--Fish 'n' Steps

o People grow attached to their pets o Finite progress--shown by capturing animals, refilling zoos

o Joining a team is encouraged, but a choice

o Casual play design

Cons

o How compelling team content is depends on your team members

o How sensitive are people about joining a virtual support group to work

towards a common goal?

o Does anyone care about the encyclopedia?

How can we make encyclopedia content compelling?

Is anyone interested in earning encyclopedia entries?

o Significant time investment needed for graphic design

Visual Mockup

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Google Maps to visualize the chase

o Bettendorf, IA "landmark" image source: http://pics4.city-

data.com/cpicv/vfiles9641.jpg

o Cat thinks scraping pictures, info from Wikipedia would be lame

What other sources of information could we use?

Flickr

sprites overlayed on Google Maps

o "big game" as Pokemon --

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs29/f/2008/073/a/4/mixed_up_pokemon_sprites_

by_rippedstar_warrior.jpg

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o "zookeeper" as Pokemon trainer --

http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/1228/diamondsheetgf8.png

Nintendo's various Pokedexes

o hardware

http://rockshadows.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/pokedex1.jpg

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http://www.sivph.com/games/dp26.jpg

http://pokemonthemovie.warnerbros.com/img/pokedexsm.gif

o interfaces

http://www.gamebrew.com/games/shots/pokemon-pokedex.jpg

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http://www.pokemongamesnow.com/pokemon.gif

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my Indexter mock-up:

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Variations/Different Modes

Solo

Team

o Get around cooldowns and get more critters

o Virtual support group Quality interactions encouraged by interestingness metric

Competitors

Pokemon

o The set of capturable animals in Pokemon is characterized by a mix of

feminine, masculine, and androgynous members. The zookeeping metaphor

will follow the same idea to appeal to both female and male players.

Zoo Tycoon

World of Zoo

o http://rlsgame.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=998:wor

ld-of-zoo-usa-wii-almost&catid=37:wii&Itemid=95

o http://rlsgame.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=893:wor

ld-of-zoo-gow&catid=34:pc&Itemid=101

o "World of Zoo takes players beyond the fences and into their own zoo,

allowing them to care for and build relationships with numerous animals

through hands-on interactive gameplay. Packed full of customization features,

players will be able to experience their own personalized virtual zoo creating

an experience unlike any other animal-based simulation game."

o "World of Zoo is a family-friendly game that will open the gates for gamers to

freely roam their zoo in ways they have only imagined. With more than 90

different animals spanning 11 families to care for, players will have

ample opportunities to engage with all types of species. The Animal Creator

feature will allow players to create an unlimited number of animals and be

able to customize each one. They can even add animals to any of the 20

different exhibits available in the game utilizing the Animal Adoption Network

feature. Players can also learn about their animals through fun animal facts

provided by National Geographic. Each animal is completely unique with

different personalities and behaviors. It will be up to the player to determine

ways to gain their trust and keep their animals happy, ultimately earning a

Magic Moment from their animal."

bold = useful for estimates of how many animals we should do

Civilization

o Max number of moves per turn is bounded

Big Game Hunter series

o http://www.amazon.com/Cabelas-Big-Game-Hunter-Nintendo-

Wii/dp/B000SFK0L6

o http://www.amazon.com/Cabelas-Game-Hunter-2010-Xbox-

360/dp/B0029CSOCS

o hunt different big game in ~32 different locations

Facebook apps

o MouseHunt

http://apps.facebook.com/mousehunt/

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"You are a hunter, hired by the king to find and trap the mice that

infest his kingdom. For each mouse you catch, you'll find a unique

reward, bringing you closer to being the best MouseHunter in the

land!"

VERY NICE FLASH VISUALS for a facebook app

popular & high rating

research

all events, actions are recorded in journal as a first person

narrative

RPG aspects, but too complex for Steps

conversational tone, like

http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/core/conversation

.html

can see # of other players in a region, # of friends

o Big Bird Hunting

http://apps.facebook.com/playbigbirdhuntigame/ Duck Hunt, essentially

References

Research

o Papers

Fish 'n' Steps

Insectopia

o Lectures

"Putting the Fun in Functional: Applying Game Mechanics to Functional

Software" -- YouTube

o Miscellaneous

Yahoo! Design Pattern Library

http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation

/competitive.html

http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation

/identifyinglabels.html

http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/social/people/reputation

/achievements.html

Flickr "interestingness"

http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/

http://wes2.wordpress.com/2006/05/12/deconstructing-flickrs-

interestingness/

SparkPeople featured members

http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_motivate.asp?sortby=6

Cited in-text

Google Documents

o "reu-proposal"

http://docs.google.com/a/atlambert.com/Doc?id=dfz9s3np_487kv2xd

ds&btr=EmailImport

the visualization proposal for geographic metaphor

useful for proposal structure

o "Bigfoot Challenge"

http://docs.google.com/a/atlambert.com/Doc?docid=0Adp-

bidAM2wOZDdqZHI2el80Mzk5OHZnOXNnYw&hl=en

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"Big Game" concept

Bigfoot metaphor

o "point system proposal groundwork: personas"

http://docs.google.com/a/atlambert.com/Doc?docid=0AW4CuXtXqEeu

ZGZ6OXMzbnBfNDVmMmY3ZDZnZA&hl=en

for writing scenarios

o "point system proposal"

http://docs.google.com/a/atlambert.com/Doc?docid=0AW4CuXtXqEeu

ZGZ6OXMzbnBfNDNjNDJ0anFmOA&hl=en Bigfoot scenarios