Collaborative Games on Mobile Phones

Authors:
Tan, Simon
Reddy, Priyanka
Tewari, Anuj
Technical Report Identifier: EECS-2009-89
June 1, 2009
EECS-2009-89.pdf

Abstract: There are many efforts to utilize the mobile phone as a computing platform in developing regions of the world. One effective approach is to build educational games for children in these regions. Existing games in this space are typically single-player affairs, devoid of the possibly beneficial element of collaboration between multiple learners. We seek to explore the feasibility of creating multiplayer mobile phone games based on traditionally multiplayer real-life games played by children in these regions, in such a way as to encourage collaboration between players. We describe a game called Colour Colour that was built for this purpose and the results of initial deployments of this game to children in rural India and ESL students in California.