Cross-Car, Multiplayer Games for Semi-Autonomous Driving

We investigate and characterize a design space for in-car games based on a survey of previous work, and identify an opportunity for "cross-car" multiplayer games played among occupants in nearby cars. This is supported by innovations in automotive technology like autonomous driving, full-window heads-up displays, and ad hoc communication between vehicles. In a custom virtual reality driving simulator, we created three games to illustrate design dimensions: Killerball, a competitive free-for-all game; Billiards, a player versus player, massively multiplayer online game with player assists; and Decoration, an idle-style game with multiplayer resource management. A 12-participant evaluation with a semi-structured interview revealed a positive response to input controls and HUDs, and suggests game genres have a similar effect on time for an emergency driving takeover task. We used insights from our process and evaluation to formulate design considerations for future cross-car games.