"The Radio Game" or "广播游戏" or "Il Gioco Radio" or "Permainan Radio" or "Radio Spiel" or "Radiowa gra terenowa" or ""
a Meshtastic powered, Borges/Boal/Propp inspired workshop toolkit to make events participants get to know specific elements of an event
The first Radio Game is going to take place at Shenzhen Maker Faire 2025
The aim of this game is to lead participants to discover elements of a place (place: a fair, an event, a place of public interest) through interaction with other users and objects, in the completion of a mission.
The subject-hero solves a educational mission through a object-value. The most ancient story told in the steppe around the fire. Vladimir Propp in Morphology of the Folktale.
There are many cultural references for this approach in my mind: there is a bit of Borges in this gamification of the present, almost as if trying to make sense of the present through a game (“The Lottery of Babylon”), but also Augusto Boal and his Invisible Theater. And then Nanni Loy with the mirror...
Much more simply, it is a matter of building a fixed narrative infrastructure that the user must go through in order to achieve something. In doing so, they will discover certain things (about themselves, the space they are in, life).
Many scholars argue that learning in this way (outside one's comfort zone) is more productive, stays better in the brain. Traumas 😂🫣.
But let's get back to the matter at hand, stop this cultural violins I know you are pragmantic people lol.
There are three types of users in this game:
- Event participants, divided into groups of 3-4 players.
- Actors within the event who will help the participants group to go in a certain direction.
- Organizers who monitor everything and produce the game.
Participants are given T1000E radios (or any Meshtastic radio?). Through the radios, they can communicate with each other and with the game master node, as well as with other users.
Example: Mission #1 for group #1 is to take object #1 from the “man with the yellow hat”: they will have to find him using location tracking or simply by sight. The character will give them an object which, if taken to location #1, will allow them to move on to the next step.
Hendra made this map, which is super cool!
Consisting of 3-4 participants, technically it could also have more than one radio. It also exists as “group #1” on Meshtastic. The creation of the groups is up to us organizers.
Example: Object #1 has an NFC tag that can open the lock on a small box #2, but where is it? They will only find out if they solve mission #2.
With the current structure, only two. Technically, the size of the event allows for up to six.
We could give participants a sticker or pin.
To be verified for use of the app, I think they must be of legal age (to be verified).
The idea behind this game is make people aware of the possibilities mesh communication have in an event scenario. Me (as: the Game master, and the storyteller as of now), I think the whole game could be produced by simple human interactions (so no need of extra stuff!) but we are (going to be) in Shenzhen, and it's 2025. I know you want to automate and play with things. Pushing to the limit.
We could have nodes that behave and talk to the mesh using meshbot. I'm about to release a version of meshbot using and NFC reader. Ths means we could have a node broadcasting the tags that open / trigger things.
Great. You come to Shenzhen in November right? how far do you want to go in the rabbit hole of the The Radio Game?
You could be many things:
- an Actor --> I come to SHZ to do my stuff, I like the idea. tell me what to do if somebody is asking me about something. Open an issue an/or tell the team you want to be part as an actor.
- a member of the organizing team / facilitator. I want to help the team be in the Control Room and dealing with the users (which is probably going to be a table with some chairs :) Open an issue an/or tell the team you want to be part as an organizer!
- a Producer of a node --> I have Xiaos, meshtastic radios etc. I know the drill. I can make a full fledged in/out performance object that could be used in the event! Open an issue an/or tell the team how you want to sew this into an organic and complex, temporary mayhem.
In the case of a Producer, these nodes are welcome:
- a node that, doing a specific gesture🤌🏼, sends a message
- a node that, on a a specific nfc reading, sends a message
- a node that, on a a specific message received, opens a servo and lets and object in the hands of the participant.
Obvouisly, this has to meet the location's needs, and shouldn't bother or make the overall production more complex.
We'll eventually manage the operations from Chaihuo Makerspace in the limited timed windows this project will happen.
We are going to deploy several nodes in the faire. These nodes must share some identifying feature, such as a sticker. It will probably be a sticker that identifies both players and actors (see: "The Sticker & NFCs" chapter).
At the moment we have 3 nodes.
- the Simple
- the Meshtastic one
- the Speaking one
The Simple Node is our MVP (Minimum Viable Product). If EVERYTHING goes wrong we are going to hardcode hints in the code, allowing teams to jump to the next challenge (see: "Structures and Challenges" chapter).
What does it do? It shares a message on the screen whenever the correct NFC is placed on the antenna. Also it changes colours based on this.
I've played a lot with meshbot in the last months and I have seen some behaviors that makes it unreliable, so I will also bring some safe plan B solutions.
Casing? I'm going to use standard boxes, that would possibly be coloured (to be updated)
This is obviously the most interesting node. We could send messages based on the NFC tags placed on the antenna. These messages are to be sent in that group A or B (two groups at a time)
One problems may be that in the shifting from the first to second reound we may need to either: a) erase those messages (apparently impossible?) b) reflash these nodes in order to give new or updated codes
because I assume the messages will be still visible in the app :(
The Audio Node brings game to the next level, allowing us to record some chinese and english hints and use them. It's basically a simple node hooked up to a DFPlayer Mini Mp3 Player anda speaker.
Each player will be given a sticker that is going to be put on her / his cloth. Each player will be given a T1000E Radio, already paired to be talking to the same group. Each team (made of up to 4 player) will be given an NFC tag
- Prizes. Will there be any? Gifted by Seeed?
- Shall we involve other Meshtastic producers other than Seeed (I still have to check whether Seeed wants to be involved 🫣)
- Rounds. We are going to have 2 rounds/games per day, 11 AM and 12 AM on saturday and sunday. Maybe we could do more. Let's see
- Hendra: eash round should be introduced by a 30-40 min introduction about meshtastic, and its installation on the user's smartphone - Possibly by a chinese speaker?