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NetsWork Game Instructions
Playing the Game
In NetsWork, players are interconnected to one another via a number of links.
A player can compose messages to most other players, but can only pass messages
directly to those few players he/she is linked to. This forces players to
cooperate and determine how to get messages to their destinations. In addition,
players are grouped randomly into clusters (see
example
where five players are in each of clusters A, B and C), organizational groups
with many internal connections and fewer connections to players in other clusters,
which adds an additional level of interesting behavior.
This game has many steps, so it is advised that instructors familiarize themselves by
reading the instructions for each game screen, provided below.
Welcome Screen |
At the Welcome Screen, the players enter their names. This is also the screen
where game preferences may be sent or received. The teacher may enter the preferences
screen by inputting the teacher password as the player name. After a player
has received a new set of game preferences, an option appears on the Welcome
Screen to beam the new preferences to other players. All players MUST have
the same game settings, or they will not be able to interact properly with
other players. |
Meet Players
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At this point players should synchronize their player lists to get a complete list of all
the participating players. To synchronize player lists, two players should line up the
IR on their Palms and one of them press the "Sync" button. Each player's list will be
shared with the other and a confirmation popup will be displayed on each device. Players
should repeat this process with different partners until their lists contain all the
participants. Alternatively, the teacher could walk around the class once to collect all
player names and again to give the list to the studnets. Once player meeting is complete,
press "Done." |
Connections Assignment
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Each player is able to make a certain number of in-cluster and out-of-cluster connections
to other players, and must decide at this point which players to connect to. Connections
allow a player to pass messages to the players they have connections to. On this
screen you will see a list of players, your in-cluster connections, and your out-of-cluster
connections. There are also counters showing how many more connections you are allowed to
make. To make a connection, click on a player name in the player list. The player will
move from the player list to the in-cluster or out-of-cluster connection list, depending
on whether or not he/she is in the same cluster as you. To remove a connection, click on
the player name in the connection list. The player will move from the connection list back
to the player list. You do not have to use all your allowed connections. When you are
done assigning connections, press "Done."
Teacher note: players will not be able to compose messages to players they are directly
connected to, as this would be a trivial task. |
My Mailbox
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After link assignment is complete, the main phase of the game begins. Here you will see
a list of all the messages you are currently carrying. Players can compose messages to
any player they are not directly linked to, and can receive, pass, or drop messages to
and from other players. You will also see your current mailbox capacity out of the
maximum ("Messages in"), your current oustanding messages out of the maximum ("Messages out"),
and the number of messages you have successfully delivered. You may view your connections
by pressing "My connections" or compose a new message by pressing "Compose."
When you receive a message addressed to you from sender X, you will get a popup that says
"You have received a new message from X! Don't forget to confirm the delivery!" and a
message delivery confirmation will be generated. You should then pass the delivery confirmation
back to X. When doing this, passing is not limited to your connections; it is probably easiest
to pass the confirmation directly back to X. At that point X will receive a popup
congratulating him on a succesful delivery and his messages delivered score will
increase. |
Compose Message
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To compose a message, press "Compose" from the My Mailbox screen (if you have too many
messages in your inbox or too many oustanding sent messages, you will not be allowed to compose
new messages). Choose a recepient by clicking on "To:" and selecting a name and write in the
message that you would like to send. You can choose to make the message viewable only by the
end recipient by checking the "Private" checkbox. After composing your message, press "Save" to
save it and return to the My Mailbox screen. You can also press "Discard" instead to throw
away the message. |
View Message
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This is where you will view, pass, and drop messages. To get to the View Message screen,
click on the message in the inbox list on the My Mailbox screen. When you are viewing a message,
you can see its origin and destination, as well as how many hops and how many hosts it has passed
through so far. Hops shows the number of times the message has been passed, and hosts shows the number
of people it has passed through. To pass the message on and delete it from your mailbox, align
your palm with another player's and press "Pass." Remember, you are only allowed to pass
messages to players who are on your connections list. To permanently delete the message
without passing it on, press "Drop." Always consider the consequences before dropping
other players' messages! To return to the My Mailbox screen without doing anything else,
press "Ok." |
Walkthrough
In this
example,
lines represent connections, and
red lines represent the path of the message. Suppose that there are two clusters, each with
four players in them. Players 1, 2, 3, and 4 are in cluster one and players 5, 6, 7, and 8
are in cluster two. Each player has 2 in cluster and 1 out of cluster connection to make.
Player 1 decides to connect to players 2, 3 and 6. When it comes time to create a message
this player creates a message destined for player 7 (player 1 would not be able to send
messages to players 2, 3, or 6 since he is directly connected to them). Player 1 passes
the message to player 3 with the hope of getting it closer to player 7. Player 3 is not
connected to player 7 either, so instead must pass it to one of her other connections.
She passes it to player 5, who she knows is friends with player 7. Player 5 is indeed
connected to player 7 and passes it there. At that time player 7 gets to read the message
and pass the return receipt to player 1.
Game Parameters
Instructors may change a number of game parameters through the preferences screen.
The teacher may enter the preferences screen by inputting the teacher password as the
player name. From here, the teacher can specify game preferences and beam the
preferences to students. In order for a teacher to successfully beam preferences,
the receiving student must be at the Welcome Screen which prompts for their name.
After a player has received a new set of game preferences, an option appears on the
Welcome Screen to beam the new preferences to other players.
General Preferences |
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- Round - Specifies which round of the game players will start in.
Players in different rounds cannot interect. The default is round A.
- Inbox size - This is the maximum number of messages a player can carry at
one time. If the inbox is full, the player will need to pass or drop some
messages before receiving or composing any more. The default is 4 messages.
- Number of clusters - Number of clusters players will be grouped into.
Players within a cluster are "closely" connected and typically share many
connections with players within their cluster, and fewer with players from
other clusters. The default is 4 clusters.
- In-transit messages limit - This is the maximum number of messages a player
can compose at a time. If a player has reached his in-transit message limit,
he will have to drop one of his messages or receive a delivery confirmation
before he can compose new messages. The default limit is 2 messages.
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Connection Preferences |
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- Out-of-cluster connections - Specifies a range of values for the number of
out-of-cluster connection points each player will receive.
The default range is 1-2 connections per player.
- In-cluster to out-of-cluster ratio - Specifies how many in-cluster connections
players will be given for each out-of cluster connection they have.
The default is 3 in-cluster connections per out-of-cluster connection.
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Information for Instructors
Networks to Think About
The concept of networks is present throughout many disciplines, from social networks
to computational network to ecological networks to protein networks. Some good
introductions to networks can be found in:
Challenges
At the start of the game, one might typically just let students connect to whom they
want and then try to see how many different people they can get messages to in the
allotted time. This number will typically be small, and there may even be messages
that can't ever get to their destinations due to isolated clusters. Have the
players think about the distribution of messages that ultimately did and did not
get to their destinations. Were there certain characteristics of messages that
made it? Were there bottlenecks? You might challenge them to create a more
efficient network that would allow each person to get messages to more people.
You might also throw in some challenges like pulling out two or three people from
the network (downed nodes) and seeing how that effects the network, and whether it
is possible to design a network that is resilient to such change.
Some other challenges and tasks include:
- Have each message be a question, that the player wants to know the answer to. This works well for icebreakers.
- At some point during the game, give one player a message that asks them to pass on a certain codeword to other players. Make the message private and tell them that all subsequent passes must be private. See how long it takes to "infect" the whole group with the codeword and think about network characteristics that would make that more efficient.
- Imagine that each message pass has a cost. Can you design a network that will limit the total cost of messages moving through the system? If you know the most common routes how would that change the design. If there were waiting time costs as well, would that change the design?
Data collection and visualization
It is possible for instructors to collect in-game data from the students' devices
and visualize this data on a PC (example) using our
Cerebrate software package. Some of the most interesting insights can come
from this visualization of the network itself and the message traffic. To do this,
you will need to install our visualization package, which includes complete
instructions.
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