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Polar Defence
In a study by \cite{polardefence} about gaming interfaces in a public space, the different interactions between passersby, spectators and active players and the game itself was studied. Over the course of four days on the campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC), data regarding these interactions was gathered.
\cite{polardefence} describes a model for categorizing users by their relation with the game. Users can be divided into 3 groups: actors, spectators and bystanders. Users generally transition, if at all, from being a bystander to being a spectator and from spectator to actor. Different substages are described. The bystander will first enter the room and then glance at the installation. A spectator will decode and observe the game where actors are in a loop of giving input and recieving feedback. This input results in the state of the game. Guiding these transitions between the various stages will speed up the process.
It is also pointed out that textual instructions are likely to be (partially) ignored and that information is mostly gathered from other actors. This implies that a game can easily become over- complicated. A game on a touch table will be easier to pick up since all the actors are gathered directly around the table itself and all their actions are visible to other users. Because bystanders can see both the actions and the results thereof at the same time, the decoding of actions to consequences should be slightly easier.
The game that was used for the study is played in a large public space on a projector screen, visible from the door, serving as an eye-catcher. The eye-catcher serves to maximize the influx of bystanders, though this will not be a possibility for our prototype. The room and devices are a given, with the table stationed in the lounge of an office. This will make it harder to attract bystanders, but this effect can possibly be mitigated by using the available lighting and furniture in a way that focuses people's attention on the touch screen table.