Somehow half a thousand people gathered in an open field. In costumes so strange that nothing could threaten them only in an open field. Nearly everyone had a bowler hat hanging from their belts, and test tubes jingled in their bags—either with ink or grandmother's compote. Divided into groups, everyone took out test tubes and began to pour their contents into the cauldrons, as if adhering to some recipes.
Gradually, five businesslike guys, dressed in heavy capes, stood out from the general group. Not the most suitable clothes for +30℃. Especially if you wind circles under the scorching sun and stick labels on 400 bowlers. Glue many, many times, as each “potion” is ready. Three days in a row.
You have read a short sketch from the life of field roleplayers. Those five who had a hard time are "alchemists". Imagine how much more enjoyable their life would be if they had, say, an app for monitoring pots. And this is just one scenario - both field and armchair role players have their sore topics. And also for cosplayers and tabletop fans. “Why not try to solve them with technology?” - we thought in BrainZ by CROC and organized CraftHack.
Who are they anyway?
To an outside observer, everyone we want to help is not very different from each other. Well, maybe someone has a cool suit, but someone doesn't have such a suit. In fact, everything is somewhat more complicated:
Reconstructors - recreate events, scrupulously observing historical accuracy. If the battle is recreated (which happens most often), its course and nuances, the winner is determined in advance. Most of all, reenactors appreciate realism, making the most believable costumes. Moreover, they do not stop at external similarities, but restore the very process of “crafting”: textiles are woven on authentic machines, armor is forged in real forges. Often, reenactors are distinguished by the physical strength necessary to handle swords, axes and all kinds of chain mail.
Roleplayers — a large group of people who, in full accordance with the name, get used to the roles of their characters and act them out. According to the most common feature, they are divided into two groups: field and armchair role players.
We already wrote about the first ones at the beginning - these are guys who need space, who love to build something. Desk role players have more modest requests for territory - they rent apartments, lofts or small hangars. In addition, role-players are divided into fandoms - someone lives in the Tolkien universe, someone is closer to Star Wars or something more exotic. Costumes and accessories, respectively, are made according to fandom - just like in a book or in a movie. Many roleplayers bring their alter egos into real life and really don't like being called by their real names.
Separately, they consider "tabletop" role-players, who transform when playing board games like Dungeons & Dragons, and usually even without costumes and accessories. All actions are acted out in words and simulated according to the agreed models using mathematics.
When it comes to authenticity, roleplayers have a five meter rule: “if it looks good from five meters, then it’s good”. The environment is a bonus. The main thing here is how you get used to the role.
cosplayers - people who choose some image and recreate it as much as possible in accordance with the fandom. Cosplay began with anime fandoms, but then people began to cosplay characters from Dota, Warhammer, Warcraft and other universes. Recently, cosplay in Russian has been singled out, when heroes of Russian fairy tales and films are chosen as characters - Princess Nesmeyana, Vasilisa the Beautiful, etc. The main difference between cosplayers and roleplayers is the complexity and thoroughness of the elaboration of the image. Cosplayers usually have terribly uncomfortable costumes, in which it is not easy to survive even a few hours at a cosplay festival.
All these people have problems that interfere with improvisation and ruin all the fun. Alchemists are knocked down, confirming the successful creation of each potion. Board gamers are forced to manually do complex calculations every turn to calculate the effects of dice rolls. "Space" roleplayers need to win back the movement between neighboring galaxies and other huge locations. For these and other problems, we decided to look for technological solutions.
CraftHack who wants to help everyone
The CraftHack hackathon was held at the Kopter Center for Youth Innovative Creativity (TsMIT) in Moscow. On Friday, August 9, we gave tasks, and on Sunday, August 11, we already awarded the winners. Now - about the most interesting quests and projects.
Space flight simulation
In space role-playing games it is necessary to win back the movement between huge locations - for example, virtual galaxies that are superimposed on a piece of terrain, sometimes up to several kilometers. From the point of view of the game, these are different locations, but physically they are the same space.
This is usually solved in two ways. The first is "spaceships in boxes". Here, getting to the border of a certain area, the players are transplanted into "starships" - they can be anything from jeeps to cardboard boxes - and beyond this border they are already traveling in space. Getting to some other fixed point, they get out of the boxes and continue the game in another zone. The second way to win back is when the "space" is a limited area, a room. Players enter there, “fly” in space for a while, and then exit at another point (from the perspective of the game).
For the second method, people write simple simulation applications, where sometimes the cabin of a spaceship is even recreated. Or they make mods based on famous flight simulators. But all this usually turns out to be buggy or too artisanal. At the hackathon, we suggested that the participants create a space simulator that could solve the main tasks of space role-playing games: maneuver in space, control the ship's engines, weapons, docking and landing systems. In addition, the simulator should represent the hitpoints (health points) of various ship systems, and disable their control in case of failure.
As a result, one team got so carried away that they made their simulator in VR. Moreover, when they brought up this idea at a preliminary discussion, we replied that we did not have the necessary technical base at the hackathon. This did not stop the guys - they had everything with them: one of the top helmets, and a powerful system unit. As a result, it turned out beautifully, but, unfortunately, too "arcade". The team lost sight of the fact that space has its own laws of physics, not like in conventional flight simulators. This was very important, and therefore, unfortunately, we were not able to recognize their efforts. Other teams made more standard solutions - dashboards and other spacecraft interface elements.
Action confirmation automation
We touched on this problem at the very beginning. On mass role-playing games, several hundred people regularly repeat important game actions (for example, brew potions or inflict damage on the enemy with these potions), which must be confirmed. And five unfortunate alchemists - masters, to speak more generally - are clearly not enough here.
There are systems for automating actions for specific games, but these solutions, as they say, are “nailed down” to specific games. We thought it would be great to create a universal system that can accept and confirm the actions of the players, returning the results instead of the masters. And so that the masters can monitor the operation of the system.
The conditions of this task gave a lot of freedom of action, so many took it for it. They offered solutions based on a weatherproof stationary computer terminal that prints labels for teams. Someone made a physics lab. We implemented a couple of ideas based on augmented reality. There were solutions based on QR codes: first you need to scan a series of QR codes in the territory (“collect ingredients”), and then use the final QR code to confirm that you have combined all the ingredients in the potion.
Separately, it is worth noting the solution with RFID - the guys implemented a "boiler" on servo drives. He determined the colors of the components that were added to it, and threw out the result. Of course, due to the limitations of the hackathon, it turned out to be a bit damp, but the originality was very pleasing.
"Ss-smokin!": tasks with masks
Masks are an important element of both cosplay and various role-playing games. Therefore, we had several tasks related to them at once.
In the first task, we were inspired by the hobby of one of our colleagues, who creates silicone masks based on a cast of a person's face. For some demonic images, she needs, for example, the mask to create the effect as if the face is covered with lava, or the mask to shimmer, as if it is melting. There are such solutions in the USA, but they are quite expensive. With the help of simple LEDs, it is impossible to create the desired effect. One team took on this challenge at a hackathon and was able to build a stun gun into a mask. Added to this is the ability to change speech. The result was a spectacular thing, and we were even scared for those who were next to her - the mask sparkled and crackled. Not about fire and lava, of course, but the effect was impressive.
The second task arose from the fact that in role-playing games there are many races and peoples who communicate in different languages and do not understand each other. It was necessary to make such masks that they made it possible to communicate between the participants who wear them - and strangers would not understand anything at the same time. Here, too, there were interesting prototypes, including those based on cryptography.
"Don't get in! Kill!"
When role-playing games take place in a large area, some of its zones have certain effects. In STALKER, this could be a radiation-contaminated area, in fantasy games, some blessed places, etc. The idea was to make a device that shows the player what zone they are in and what effects they are experiencing.
I remember one original decision here, when one of the teams made a smoke gun out of a vape and a bottle of water. And she hung devices on the players that, recognizing smoke, gave the person the necessary information about the zone where the player is located.
Live to Win!
We awarded hackathon participants in several different categories. They did not coincide with the tasks described above - moreover, one of the teams earned our reward by completing their own task.
Area Effect: the most applied and scalable solution
Here we noted the "Kotsplay" team and their solution for automating the actions of the game master ("alchemist"). The basis of their solution is an augmented reality table with markers corresponding to certain ingredients.
Here is the table with ingredient markers
But the "magic" of augmented reality
When collecting the necessary ingredients, the creation of the "elixir" is recorded in the mobile application. It also contains game recipes. So far, the application uses third-party, server capacities, but in the future it is planned to transfer it completely to the client side. And also expand the possibilities of customization for different role-playing universes and take into account the game level of the hero when crafting.
Another winner in this nomination, the Cyber_Kek_Team team, created a solution for zoning the playing space using the principles of triangulation. In the right areas on the field, beacons based on an inexpensive microcontroller are placed . Players are given similar devices based on ESP32, but more functional, with a button that performs some kind of pre-defined action. Beacons and user gadgets find each other via Bluetooth and exchange game information. Thanks to the flexible controller settings, many scenarios can be implemented in this way - from fencing safe areas and transferring first-aid kits to causing damage from grenades and spells.
Finally, we marked the 3D command. She created a universal application that calculates the effects of polyhedral dice rolls, taking into account character characteristics in D&D and similar games.
"Engin-seer": the most creative solution
The School 21 team, which worked on automating the work of alchemists, distinguished itself in this nomination. It was these guys who made a solution that resembles a real boiler, which we wrote about above. Upstairs, the player lays the ingredients that are determined by the system by color, and if the necessary components are available, the system gives out something that symbolizes the new "elixir". It has a QR code, by scanning which you can find out about the properties of the elixir. An important advantage here is the low level of abstraction: binding to physical objects maintains a "magical" role-playing atmosphere.
"Level-Up": for the most significant progress in development
In this nomination, we noted those who managed to jump above their heads in two days of the hackathon - the Natural Zero team. The guys have created a universal set for the game-mechanical exploitation of magical artifacts in role-playing games. It consists of a "magic charge" measurement device, a Hall sensor-based meter. As you get closer to storage devices with solenoids inside, the meter lights up brighter and brighter. There is also a third class of devices in the system - absorbers - which is responsible for reducing the charge on the drive. This is due to the fact that through the absorber's RFID tag, the drive receives a command to apply less current to the solenoid. Accordingly, in this case, the measurement device will give a less bright signal - show a lower level of "mana" (or any other indicator, depending on the game).
One of the Natural Zero prototypes
"Madskillz": for the coolest set of technologies and skills
Many hackathon participants demonstrated original and unexpected solutions, using very technological tools. But still I wanted to single out the “A” team. These guys made their own smart staff that recognizes gestures - . It consists of three main parts:
- Raspberry Pi Zero - recognizes and remembers user gestures, sends commands to paraphernalia;
- Arduino Nano - receives data from sensors and sends it to Raspberry for analysis;
- The mop is “a case for the device, a unique form factor.”
For gesture recognition, the principal component method and a decision tree are used:
Finale
Why do people cosplay and role play? An important reason is to get “out of the box” of ordinary reality that surrounds us every day. Many roleplayers, reenactors and cosplayers constantly solve IT problems at work, and this experience helps them in their favorite hobby. And for some, the topics of CraftHack are, in principle, much closer than the topics of traditional “industry” hackathons.
Here, IT people with some training revealed themselves, and role players and cosplayers far from IT, on the other hand, were able to expand their technical horizons. The experience gained at the hackathon can be useful for them to solve similar problems in real life - the IT tools mastered at CraftHack have many areas of application. It seems to us that in the end, each of the parties received a good creative bonus - +5, or even as much as +10.
Source: habr.com