A point-and-shoot weapon design for outdoor multi-player smartphone games

Multi-player games played outdoors on smartphones can be designed to improve players' health by requiring vigorous physical activity in an interesting and challenging natural environment, while still providing engaging virtual elements and enabling social interaction. However, to achieve these goals, game elements must not be too screen-oriented, because staring at the device screen degrades one's skill and safety in running, jumping, and climbing. We should instead design game elements in ways that allow them to be experienced with minimal or no screen reading. On the other hand, matching outcomes with user expectations is a major challenge, due to the inaccuracy of device sensors and the realities of communications in outdoor field conditions. This paper describes a design for point-and-shoot weapons that allows the player simply to point the smartphone and tap to shoot. The design includes a computational procedure for engineering implementations to a given accuracy standard and has three variants supporting different types of game experience. We evaluate the design using both Monte Carlo simulations and data gathered from an implemented instance within the iTESS Geocast Game.