The Ambient Wood MUD objects consist of a number of software objects that are placed in Multi-User Dungeon. Their role is to provide a model of the world the Ambient Wood experience is run in and to orchestrate the interactions, based on a defined scenario. Using "MEAP'', a proxy designed to bridge between the MUD and elvin notifications, the objects are driven by interactions in the wood and cause displays and speakers to convey information to the children. In Ambient Wood I, rooms in the MUD correspond to regions in the real-world wood, marked by pingers. As the children move around the physical wood, their virtual counterparts are moved around rooms in the MUD. The MUD contains other items such as the displays children are carrying, and speakers placed in the wood. The orchestration of the experience is programmed into the rooms of the MUD, so as a virtual child enters a room, the room triggers a speaker object to sound and the child's display some information, depending on the state of the environment. These objects, linked via MEAP and elvin, cause corresponding actions to occur in the real world.
The use of a MUD provides an easy way to design and develop scenarios for the experience, since the developer is able to work entirely in a virtual world. This becomes especially useful when testing and debugging the scenarios since wandering around the virtual world maps naturally to wandering around the real wood. |
