Electronics for role-playing games in 2016 / Geektimes

Electronics for role-playing games in Russia – the most complex and diverse in the world. Yes, a role-play is often a man in a forest with a sword, only this sword is shining. But only when the orcs are approaching. And it’s charged from mini-USB.

Several years ago on Habr there was a series of articles about role-playing electronics (in three parts – one, two, three), perhaps it’s time to tell what appeared new for 2016.

Tiny copies of electronic devices for role-playing games are similar to the electronics for questrums. But there are differences. In the questrum, you do not need to think about the power of the device (for example, a complex code lock), and it is embedded in the wall itself, so the solutions at Arduino are quite appropriate.

Role-based electronics have to be used where there are no power generators and cellular communications, so the reliability of radio and low power consumption become the most important parameters of the device.

In addition, role-playing games often require a dozen identical devices, which, moreover, three days will be worn in a wet forest sweaty players. And here already the board sizes and lack of wires become vital requirements.

Another important parameter is the price. Games are paid by players’ fees and often go into negative. The fee is to pay for the venue (a private testing ground or a holiday home, food, medicine, building … and electronics is not enough. As a rule, the workshop group (organizers) can pay for printing boards and components, and the electronics engineer, programmer, board builders, testers Work on a volunteer basis. ”

Magic wand, staves and bracelets

Perhaps the biggest challenge to the role-playing community remains a magic wand. Ideally this should be a small Device that reads a magic gesture and, for example, sends a voice command to the earpiece on the player the spell came in. The sequence of the opponent’s actions is that the player hears the “Stupefy” command in the ear and falls into a faint.

Such functionality is not realized yet , But a few steps to it were done.

Magic staffs operate on the principle of laser tag .The team that creates them, tested several solutions. The first version of the staff was made on ESP, all interactions were worked out on the server. The version was tested and discarded due to a long delay (response to the button pressing on the staff came in a few seconds).

The current version consists of a control board, IR -diode, IR receiver. Wizards can choose from a set of spells before the fight and “hang” each one on a button on the staff.
Magic duel now goes by such rules: mana is infinite, but you can cast similar spells after a certain time. The staff sends a signal, and takes into account hits, and is “armor” (hits are divided into “live” and “dashing”).

But the approach from the other side, from recognition of gesture, biotic bracelet: in 2013 For the game on the “Witcher” were made gloves that recognize the gesture static (three different positions of the fingers), in 2016 there was a game on Mass Effect – about the school, where from the marginalized teenagers are raised combat biotics. There were several models of this transformation, they were complex (pharmacology, psychology, hypnosis), one of the models – fighting gestures that needed to be correctly done.
Gestures are three-component, with the correct execution of the first component, the bracelet vibrates, on the second, the vibration increases, after the third component follows a flash of a certain color.

And here you can see why the electronics for role-playing games can be invented more simply than the electronics for the quests. There it is necessary to count on unprepared public and to prepare as much as possible antivandal decisions. The participant of the role-playing game read the rules and follows them – if a red light burns on the door, he considers it to be locked, if the enemy blinded him with a red flash – believes that fireball came to him. Mad Mad and cars

On the game MAD MAD MAX in the Leningrad region, of course, there were cars and motor vehicles, Which well could not be destroyed “in life” – and leave without gasoline, too, would not like. And to shoot the cars and fight for the gasoline, I wanted so that the benzak became digital, and the shots were infrared.

The workshop group developed an application for Android that read the GPS position, counted the mileage, wear, gasoline consumption, bluetooth determined Defeat by the signal from the IR sensors, through it also controlled the color of the beacons on the car. The beacons signaled the condition of the machine. Of course, the trip computer was not connected to any car systems – the driver had to muffle the motor when he saw the sign “STOP” on the screen.

In order to fill the gas tank, a digital code was needed from the canister to the trip computer. After refueling, the code became invalid; She demanded communication with the Internet. At the chosen point of the Leningrad Region this is fortunately not a problem.

Photos of Julia Tishkova and the team “Big Reporting.”

Inhuman abilities

Back in 2010 on the game “Second Age” Koltseots could feel the presence of each other. Besides the ring, everyone wore a bag on his neck. A vibration similar to a heartbeat made it clear that the other owner of the magic ring is near (stealth is important for role-playing electronics, so vibration in many ways is better suited to the interaction of the device and the user than light or sound.)

This is how a similar task is being solved now. It is necessary to demonstrate the non-human abilities of the Jedi. Star Wars game, something terrible is coming, force-users should feel that the cataclysm is starting.

Small catastrophic radio transmitters, “Falloutodeways”, are hanging around the landfill (named so because they were designed To simulate the Zone on “Fallout” in 2014 – worked and sources of radiation, and strips of health on the characters). Every force-user wears a medallion under his clothes, and when the Cataclysm begins, he feels a vibration in the rhythm of the heartbeat. The medallion is also responsible for the health of the character – it can be inserted into the “pill” for healing. A pill is a 2 kb flash drive that costs 20 rubles and can store an ID in it (so that one dose is not tried several times).

Medallion inside and out.

The same setting, another game and another task. Weak Jedi can feel the perturbation of the Force nearby, more experienced feel also other force-users.

In the same year 2016, the medallions were reprogrammed and hung already on artifacts. Collected in one place, artifacts at the click of a button initiated a critical portal for the plot (in the form of a glowing stone: radio, a lot of LED tape and mounting foam).

2017 will be new devices and new technologies – for example, a team from Siberia is working on devices from the movie “Time”. If they succeed, you can pay with the minutes of your life – or rather, the character’s life.