SNC Social Gaming System

Lee, Kai Win (2016) SNC Social Gaming System. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Purpose: SNC, is the system name, the combination of the first letter of Smaller, Nearer but Closer. SNC is a mini social gaming system that with the help of game and food to building out better connection among peoples. Smaller, Nearer but Closer are the basic concept of the system, a smaller social circle, when the people are nearer, the distance of the people heart are closer, with the purpose that building a better connection of relationship. Basically, the system allowed peoples to play mini game within a location for example café or restaurant, location that people use to socialize. Nowadays, phubbing problems are occur among this locations. Phubbing is a term that form by the combination of “Phone” and “Snubbing”, which means ignoring people with their phones. Besides playing games, the system having a reward system, which allowed player to choose a food or Beverage to as a winning rewards. So player can get food when win the game. Other than that, there is another Game Live Streaming module for this system, this module is to display the gameplay screen on the big tv screen that usually F&B outlet will have, to let people watch it like a sports game show, to enhancing the atmosphere of the location to become lively and happy. Scope: This project included Reward Management System, Game Live Streaming System, Leaderboard System and few games. First is Reward Management System. This system is used by staff in restaurant or café to edit or update the reward menu. This project will allow player to choose a food from reward menu as reward of the game. So this system will allow the staff edit and update the menu if they plan to change the reward menu. The staff can add in new item, modify the detail for an item and also remove the item. Besides that, the staff also can check the condition for the player (Win the game or Lose the game) with using this system. So they can add the reward price to the losers’ bill or all players’ bill base for this system. Besides that, Game Live Streaming System also is in this project scope. This system also is used by the staff, to show/ display the current game to a big screen, so the non-player customer also can view the game. The staff can display all the current game to the big screen so the non-player customer can feel the atmosphere and support them. The staff also can switch the game from sub-screen to main screen, so the main screen not only displays same game, because the staff can switch it to other game anytime if they want. Next is Leaderboard System. This system will store/ hold all the high score data, not only local category learderboard, but it also handle the country category and world category leaderboard. So the staff and the customers can know who is the highest score holder in this restaurant, this country and also in the world. Lastly are the games. For now, this project included 2 games, which is Coco Collector and Sweets Killer to allow the customer to play. The gameplay for Coco Collector is who can collect most “Coco” in limited time, he/ she will be the winner. Besides that, the gameplay for Sweets Killer is who able to kill all the opponents and stay until the end becomes the last survivor, he/ she will be the winner. Methodology: The tools used in this project is Unity game engine, 3ds Max, Parse Cloud and Kii Cloud. First, this used Unity game engine as main development tool to build this project. Besides that, 3ds Max used to create or modify/ edit the models which used in the project. Next, we used 2 extra plugin to hold the data, which are Parse Cloud and Kii Cloud. In this project, we used Parse Cloud to hold the reward menu data, all the reward’s detail will send and store at Parse Cloud. Furthermore, we used Kii Cloud to hold/ store the leaderboard data, so we can get the leaderboard data from it. Development phases: The development phase for this system is prototype model. Since this project was involved many people, included restaurant staff and customer. Especially the staff, they are main users for this system, because they need to control this system, like Reward Management System, Game Live Streaming System, Leaderboard System. For given convenience to them, we need to design it to lets them easy to use the system. So we choose used prototype model, first we will build a prototype base for the opinion/ suggestion we collected from the staff. After that, we will let the staff test the prototype and ask the feedback from them and modify the system base for the feedback. We will keep ask the feedback from staff and modify the system, until the staff satisfy with the system. With this model, we can make sure this system does not be an extra burden for them. Assessment criteria used: In testing phase was used the test plan to test the game from several area. For example, Functionality Testing and Multiplayer Testing. Functionality Testing, to test the system can work correctly and less error and bug. Multiplayer Testing, to test the system either can support more players to join the game or not and also test the system can support how many users join at the same time. Results: The system was success to implement and all main functions are work correctly, but the design of the system still messy and still have some bug unsolved. The strength for our system is can let the non-player customers also can feel the game’s atmosphere, because we will show the current game into a big screen like World Cup Football Competition will show in a big screen. But the weakness is this system is fully dependent for the internet, if didn’t have internet, most of the functions in this system will not work. Conclusions and Recommendations: During the project, author have explore a lot of new thing. First, is the Backend Programming, author have learn some new knowledge about php programming and web database. But due to a free host domain are hard to find, and author get a suggestion from using Parse or Kii to handle the backend staff. It is simple and efficient, and it is good enough for the SNC system used. Next, networking also a new area that the production team haven touch before, the team took a lot of times to try several networking method and finally choose Photon Networking for the system. In the future, game that support SNC should be more, but current system are still too dependent, any improvement and upgrade will not be a very easy job. So, in the future the system should be modify and improve to able plug and play concept, player can just download the game they wanted and easily connect to the system. This could be a big change in development process, more things need to take in to consideration, and especially how the data send and receive over the network.