Virtual Orienteering Game For Smartphones
Sainio, Kari (2015)
Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu
2015
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 Suomi
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015092514895
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015092514895
Tiivistelmä
Orienteering is a relatively famous sports activity in Nordic countries. Today technology provides attractive means for transition from traditional orienteering to virtual orienteering. Virtual orienteering can be thought as orienteering without using a traditional printed map and compass. On the other hand smartphones contain technology for implementing virtual orienteering.
There are different smartphone platforms and types, making application development challenging because several code bases and variations are needed. One way to avoid developing an application to several platforms is to use platform agnostic application frameworks. Game engine is one example of such application framework, which supports the deployment of the application to different platforms. A game engine can be used for implementing a virtual orienteering game application. Game engine, such as Cocos2d-x is one famous open source based engine that supports application development to several smartphone platforms.
The purpose of this study was to study available technology for virtual orienteering and create an implementation of proof of concept. The aim for the proof of concept was to demonstrate that Cocos2d-x game engine could be used to implement a virtual orienteering game deployed to several different smartphone platforms.
The study goes through the theory of orienteering and virtual orienteering, including description of restrictions and usage of traditional orienteering maps and how publicly available online maps could be utilized. Satellite navigation system technology and its usage are also described. Device sensor technology in the form of magnetometer is also covered. General game development principles and requirements for the proof of concept game are discussed, an example and simplified source code snippets are provided. Information on how necessary adaptations could be made to Cocos2d-x to support iOS and Android systems is also provided.
A proof of concept game of virtual orienteering was implemented successfully. The game demonstrated that Cocos2d-x is a valid choice for developing virtual orienteering or other location based applications. It was also shown that Cocos2d-x adequately supports different screen sizes and different platforms.
There are different smartphone platforms and types, making application development challenging because several code bases and variations are needed. One way to avoid developing an application to several platforms is to use platform agnostic application frameworks. Game engine is one example of such application framework, which supports the deployment of the application to different platforms. A game engine can be used for implementing a virtual orienteering game application. Game engine, such as Cocos2d-x is one famous open source based engine that supports application development to several smartphone platforms.
The purpose of this study was to study available technology for virtual orienteering and create an implementation of proof of concept. The aim for the proof of concept was to demonstrate that Cocos2d-x game engine could be used to implement a virtual orienteering game deployed to several different smartphone platforms.
The study goes through the theory of orienteering and virtual orienteering, including description of restrictions and usage of traditional orienteering maps and how publicly available online maps could be utilized. Satellite navigation system technology and its usage are also described. Device sensor technology in the form of magnetometer is also covered. General game development principles and requirements for the proof of concept game are discussed, an example and simplified source code snippets are provided. Information on how necessary adaptations could be made to Cocos2d-x to support iOS and Android systems is also provided.
A proof of concept game of virtual orienteering was implemented successfully. The game demonstrated that Cocos2d-x is a valid choice for developing virtual orienteering or other location based applications. It was also shown that Cocos2d-x adequately supports different screen sizes and different platforms.