The Restaurant - Game Designers Wanted

[The Continental]

The MIT Media Lab (http://www.media.mit.edu/) is offering a chance to contribute to the "first collaboratively authored computer game" (http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Ejorkin/restaurant/) and earn a Game Designer credit in the final product for doing so. The Restaurant Game is a research project at the MIT Media Lab (http://www.media.mit.edu/) that will algorithmically combine the gameplay experiences of thousands of players to create a new game. In a few months, we will apply machine learning algorithms to data collected through the multiplayer Restaurant Game, and produce a new single-player game that we will enter into the 2008 Independent Games Festival (http://www.igf.com/).

Everyone who plays The Restaurant Game will be credited as a Game Designer. It's never been easier to earn Game Designer credentials! All contributions are not equal, however. Designers will be ranked based on how well they play their assigned roles, and accomplish their objectives. There will be only one Lead Designer. Remaining credits will be divided into Game Designers and Assistant Game Designers, and within each category individuals will be ranked according to the quality of their performance(s). Quality will be determined computationally, based on a number of factors.

The Restaurant Game takes about 10 minutes to play. It is a two-player game that will automatically find partners for players once you join a server. You are welcome encouraged to play multiple times. In order for this project to be at all successful, we will need to collect a lot of data -- data from over 1,000 gameplay sessions. Play early, play often, and please spread the word!

This project attempts to address two frustrations I experienced as a professional game developer. 1) Convincing human social behavior is difficult to model with existing hand crafted AI systems. 2) Play testing by people outside of the development team typically comes too late to have a major impact on the final product. This experiment aims to generate AI behaviors that conform to the way players actually choose to interact with other characters and the environment; behaviors that are convincingly human because they capture the nuances of real human behavior and language.Thanks VE3D (http://ve3d.ign.com/).

Even if you're not interested in the game designer credit, it's still a very cool project, the results of which you're likely to see in a future mainstream title given that the project lead previously worked on F.E.A.R. and Noone Lives Forever 2.

[Varsity]

You can tell this guy wasn't in PR. What the hell is the game about?

[Tyrant]

Based on the notes for the version updates, a single picture on the webpage, and the name itself, it may very well be a restaurant simulation where one person is a waiter and the other is a customer.

[MosBen]

Call the editor! It's No One Lives Forever.

[gojira]

You can tell this guy wasn't in PR. What the hell is the game about?

Based on comments on the web site, it's his MIT machine learning project. That's what it's about. The whole restaurant thing is incidental.

[Xerxes]

This kinda sounds like they give you credit for nothing. Like when the people give you a college degree from a high school if you call a number they give you on 2am television commercials.

[Spigot]

Very cool. I'm going to give it a whirl. If nothing else, I can say I was a game designer for a brief stint back in '07.

[Riproar]

Just tried it. I'd call it a social interaction simulation. At the end you are quizzed on what you though about the other person playing. How old you think they are in real life, were they considerate, three words you can think of to describe them.

I ended up as the waiter/ress and had a bit of trouble making and depositing the dinner tabs. Had one customer but ended up paying for one I left an item off of and at the end I had about 6 blank tabs sitting next to the register.

Not a lot of fun but I found it very interesting in a simplistic sort of way. And not something I'd play everyday but I may give it a few more shots.

[Royal Fool]

Dear god, this game runs like absolute shit in windowed mode. And my machine can handle pretty much anything...

EDIT: Okay, scratch that. This game runs like shit EVEN in 1680x1050 resolution, fullscreen. What the fuck... Why am I getting a crappy framerate in a 3D environment that's rendering so little on screen?

Oh, and some other fun info: If you alt-tab, the game won't appear in the taskbar or in the alt-tab menu. In short, the game isn't accessible again. And it's eating up 75k of memory... I'm having a hard time believing this was created by experienced software designers.

[Arphahat]

I agree with Royal Fool. The game 'runs' like a pile of shit. I get a window with the starting screen, but when I move my mouse over it, the pointer disappears and I can click on nothing. Only thing left to do is kill it.

edit: Actually, the pointer doesn't disappear, it just takes around 10 seconds for it to register mouse movement. Maybe I'll try again with the next release, but it is unplayable as it is right now.

[Riproar]

Ran almost too smooth for me. I was jerking around so much from my quick mouse resposiveness my patron must have though I was spastic. My framerate must have been at least 35 fps. IF you need more than that for a game like this...well, you must have some pretty high gaming standards. What fps were you getting. Did you have the Open GL box checked?

[Royal Fool]

Ran almost too smooth for me. I was jerking around so much from my quick mouse resposiveness my patron must have though I was spastic. My framerate must have been at least 35 fps. IF you need more than that for a game like this...well, you must have some pretty high gaming standards. What fps were you getting. Did you have the Open GL box checked?
I was getting pretty much unplayable FPS, I'd reckon around 10-15, sometimes dipping even lower. And I enabled OpenGL.

[J Arcane]

"first collaboratively authored computer game"
I'll take bogus claims for $300, alex.

[Riproar]

I was getting pretty much unplayable FPS, I'd reckon around 10-15, sometimes dipping even lower. And I enabled OpenGL.I didn't enable OpenGL and I'm running it on Win2000. Maybe that's culpret...or ticket as the case may be.

Don't fret RFool.;) Really isn't much different than a restaurant themed chat room where you are only paired up with someone anonymously and are assigned the role of waitress or patron.

[gojira]

Ran smooth as silk here. Of course, I did just upgrade my hardware. Thank god because I held onto my previous rig for 5+ years and it was a POS.

I was running in windowed mode, default resolution, with OpenGL checked, and pretty much the default configuration. Actually, I didn't even look, I just accepted the default and it ran.

Sorry but I'm just so glad I finally saved up and upgraded. It's been heck getting anything done for about 2 years.

The game has very little in the way of polygons or textures. I have to assume there some incompatibility in the Torque engine that doesn't like your hardware. He's one guy working on his project, I doubt he can afford much in the way of testing every hardware combination.

[NoName]

Apparently this game won't open in Vista... :/

[danhoo]

For humor value, I will now describe my experiences with this "game":

Walked into a restaurant to see the waitress stacking plates and plates of pie on the counter. Sat down at a random table. Waitress continued stacking pie.

Grabbed a menu from across the room with my powers of telekensis. Asked the waitress if they had any pie. Waitress proceeded to sit on my table and spin around for a bit.

Got up, walked over to the counter, ate two plates of pie, paid my bill, and left. Waitress was still spinning in circles on the table. Objective complete.

Strangely, this experience closely matches the last time I was at Dennys.

[Riproar]

For humor value, I will now describe my experiences with this "game":

Walked into a restaurant to see the waitress stacking plates and plates of pie on the counter. Sat down at a random table. Waitress continued stacking pie.

Grabbed a menu from across the room with my powers of telekensis. Asked the waitress if they had any pie. Waitress proceeded to sit on my table and spin around for a bit.

Got up, walked over to the counter, ate two plates of pie, paid my bill, and left. Waitress was still spinning in circles on the table. Objective complete.

Strangely, this experience closely matches the last time I was at Dennys.
I've tried a couple more times and, ya there are some jerks jerking around, spinning on tables etc. But my first experience was really nice and cordial. Made me remember my days of waitering long, long ago...and how much I hated it.

It was fun for a very short time actually.

[El Ikkir]

The servers lagged too much for me, but it seems like a "fun" game.

If you get a good waitress, it's ok, but its more fun if you add a little something else to it.

I'll try it again later.


btw, I was running this on my old laptop, and framerate was just fine.

[bitwise]

Apparently this game won't open in Vista... :/

http://www.umbrellahead.com/bitwise/funneh/10/1171671999960.jpg

I read some pretty scary stuff (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html) about Vista the other day.

[The Continental]

I don't know what it is, but I'm having way too much fun with this damn "game". When the other players decide to have some fun with it, it's downright hilarious.

[sanatos]

I'm having so much fun with this! Here's a rundown of my adventures:
Ordering a drink and stealing the microwave while the waitress is getting it
Hitting on customers
Being a drunk
The list goes on!

[Spigot]

I kind of like this. It's nothing insanely deep but for a quick 'game' fix, I'm digging it. Plus it's funny to have people come by my computer and say, "The Restaurant Game?" and shake their head and walk away :)

[Tyrant]

The game does seem to work in Vista, although it crashed/froze when I stepped on the Objective complete square.

My first meal involved my waitress sitting on a glass of water I was holding. Figuring she'd get out of the sit pose by giving her the glass of water, I did just that and instead of going back into the standing position, her player model and glass suddenly went flying off out of the restaurant. The waitress somehow managed to get back into the place, but at the end of my meail, she billed me an extra $70 for "breaking the roof". I received a complimentary fruit basket though.

[Camel]

I'm having so much fun with this! Here's a rundown of my adventures:
Ordering a drink and stealing the microwave while the waitress is getting it
Hitting on customers
Being a drunk
The list goes on!
The bit about the microwave not only made me spit water all over myself, but is going to make me try this game. Bravo, good sir! :D

[Lizard Dude]

So far I've only done the tutorial, but judging by the stories here:

this game will have the worst AI ever.

[sanatos]

So far I've only done the tutorial, but judging by the stories here:

this game will have the worst AI ever.
Spontaneity and working outside the rules is what separates man from machine! Also, for my first few games I wasn't sure whether it was actually a human or not because they followed the rules and used good punctuation.

[Sl1pstream]

Why the hell would they make a non-Intel mac version? I need an Intel version damnit.

[Spigot]

I played a few games this afternoon and it was a lot of fun. Granted, I was a bit of a dork as the customer and 'called the police' on the customer when I was the waitress, but I liked it.

I told the one waitress that I was allergic to flowers and stormed off without paying when they kept putting the flowers near me. If you can look at it as a way of totally messing with people while being polite, it's a lot of fun :)

[Lizard Dude]

Speaking of messing with people while being polite, I just had a guy ask if waters were free and then order 1000 waters. I brought him like 50 and he kept drinking them. Eventually I told him we were closing. He agreed to leave, but then grabbed the cash register and ran out the door.

Also, what's with the free paid bill on the table at the beginning that the first person into the game can cash. Is it a test against thievery? Or a way to put money into the economy since you only make half of what you spend if you play each role equally?

[El Ikkir]

1. Order 100 pies.
2. Eat all the pies.
3. Fill tables with plates.
4. Just follow the customer around, and don't say a thing.


Hmmm..

[Lizard Dude]

I'm really getting the same creepy-character-model-watching-you vibe that The Ship gave me from this.

[Xerxes]

I sat on the bartender's head.

[TurboKinny]

I had way too much fun with this game. I think I and another guy were the only ones on, though, as we kept getting paired up. He's a luesser.

[mikex1337]

I sat on the bartender's head.

lol. This is an old thread, but this is way too funny. :)