Paweł

Light Rail Game – Concept 1 – Communications Game

The ability of a traffic controller to make decisions is constrained by the information he gets from different, intermediate sources. That person is never on scene and never has full information, so if a crisis occurs, the lack of proper communication might result in suboptimal decisions.

Thus, I would like the game to explore the system from the controller’s side. Normally, these guys sit in front of many screens with different information and have voice communication with drivers and a phone to call somebody else. Thus in game they would have 4 switchable screens with different parameters:

Communication would be changed to text based. It would be a means of receiving (not always solid) information from e.g. drivers or police. No way of sending messages.
Simple dashboard showing map, GPS coordinates of occurrence, other vehicles in transit
Decision screen – several options to choose for the next step
Score and Key Performance Indicator Screen – to keep track of how good the decisions were

The game would then be played with increasing difficulty of scenarios. The scenarios would go for example like that: A blinking light leads you to the dashboard where is shows, that a line is blocked. No further information. So (in decision screen) one has an option to contact the nearest drivers and ask what they know. Some of them reply (say several messages) that there was a congestion in the crossing and heavy traffic and one that he is stuck and cannot move because there is a car blocking the tracks, that has apparently broken down. Out of several options (like calling for a towing truck) one has to choose to ask the driver to leave the tram and help the driver to push the car aside. Bam, everybody claps their hands and is happy. Crude and effective. Next scenario would be similar but it is a truck that blocks the traffic and pushing it aside would require help. Thus, instead of pushing or calling the police he should call the nearest service car to tow the guy out of the way or to the nearest garage.

The game would develop on scenarios like that providing a solid learning exercise. To make it fun and engaging I would add some animation and sounds (maybe weird background music) to play every time the player makes a decision. Also add some ridiculous choices like ramming the abovementioned car.

Advantages:

Represents reality quite well
Provides real, varied challenges
Structures the occurrence of problems

Disadvantages:

Heavily based on scenarios
Difficult to make really funny
Would be playable just a couple of times (until you get it right)
Not really based on simulation but pre-defined scenario choices

Light Rail Game – Concept 2 – Top-view Arcade Rerouting Game

A game for touchscreens based on a typical skill based approach. Imagine there is a pre-defined map on which trams travel. You as a controller have a top-down view of the situation and can steer your fleet in a god-like mode.

So the simulation goes as trams move sluggishly through their desired lines. But from time to time a disruption occurs. There are two types of disturbances: track blockage related and tram operations related. It is e.g. blocked track or incident in the vehicle that you need to quickly respond to. For blockage, rerouting would be preferable but if there is no space or time one has to wait or use a power-up. Every occurrence would have a countdown till the end. Taking a right action would give points and a chance of getting a power-up, wrong one would not yield points and not taking any action would increase customer dissatisfaction.

For instance an event of having a drunk person on the tram (tram operation disturbance) should be resolved by the driver kicking him out and not calling the police making all the passengers wait (exaggeration). Ignoring the occurrence would decrease the satisfaction level of the other travelers. If a tram is rerouted there are extra points added for swiftness but the larger the detour the more the satisfaction level decreases (because the passengers are far from their desired destination. For every second of not taking any action to a disturbance (or tram waiting not being able to move forward) a small amount of points would be taken and there could be several incidents at once so that one really has to concentrate and make decisions swiftly. For every tram that reaches its destination there is small points gratification and if the ride was without disturbances, also a slight increase of the satisfaction level.

Power-ups would include actions like: remove obstacles, deletion all blockages from the map, call other means of transportation to transfer the passengers from selected tram, ram the blockage (with minus points), teleport passengers randomly out (with extra score but decreasing satisfaction level) Difficulty increases with the speed of the trams (or given disruptions) and their number. Also we might add a couple of maps, which could have different difficulty levels.

Advantages: