Urmel lebt!

Urmel lebt! – An Interactive Mobile Museum Guide

"Urmel lebt!" (Urmel lives!) is a mobile, multimedial museum guide. Developed by a seven-member-team and in cooperation with the Augsburger Puppenkiste(a famous german puppet studio), an interactive tour through the puppet museum "Die Kiste" was created, which playfully mediates information about the showcases and their backgrounds to the visitor.

Equiped with mobile phones connected to a Java-based Gameserver via Bluetooth, visitors were audio-visually guided throughout the museum, creating at the same time a customized movie containing their favourite actor, scenery and special item (all to be found in the displays).

At the end of a tour, the young directors and other visitors could sit down in front of a TV and enjoy their movie.

Watch a movie of the project

Language: German

Concept and Idea

Motivation

Through the interactive museum guide, well-known characters become alive again: our showcase-tour gives an insight look into the world of exhibited (puppet) play, and demands with quiz-like questions the visitor to have a closer look. As a result, the visitor stays longer in the museum and discovers much more.

The Partner

The Augsburger Puppenkiste is probably the most famous marionette theatre in Germany. With its lovable stories and characters, the marionette theatre of Augsburg is an attraction for all generations. Its traditional format maintains an inimitable charm today despite all current technical development.

The Game

Kasperl of Augsburg appears as presenter and tour guide on the screen. Promoting the reunion the puppets, he motivates the player to be director for a new play with them, and leads him from showcase to showcase.

While the player proceeds, he selects the main character, the setting and a special item for his new movie by multiple-choice screens.

When all decisions are made, the "new" movie is shown in a separate theatre-like area of the museum on a TV.

Design

The design is integrated into the look of the Augsburger Puppenkiste. On the one hand wooden elements build the background. This way the old and well-known style mixes with new technology and the main idea of the game is depicted - which is building new things with (story-) modules.

All text is spoken; therefore the game is easy to use for small children who may not be able to read yet. The game is entirely controlled by a touch screen interface and your fingertips.

At the end of the game the player is rewarded with the presentation of the movie he put together himself. Those movies come out of a pool of pre-produced movie sequences that fit to the player’s choices. They are collages out of existing TV-productions of the Augsburger Puppenkiste. Elements are cut out of different movies, put together and animated to new stories. A professional narrator tells the new stories along with the animations.

Technology

The game and the museum tour are guided via mobile phones (Sony-Ericsson P900/P910). The mobile phone (the client) is programmed on Symbian OS 7.0 (C++), and communicates via Bluetooth with a Java-based gameserver.

The system is built as a client-server-architecture where the client runs on Symbian (C++) and the server on Java. The server manages the entire game flow; the "primitive" client just provides a bunch of methods that can be called by the server.

To supply a client-server-communication for controlling the game, a HTTP-based mini protocol was developed (UGSP: Urmel Game Server Protocol): it sends in clear text requests and responses between the two participants (Mobile and Linux-Server).
The client displays the game interface by receiving commands from the server via Bluetooth interface. The output of the games media (video, audio, pictures) is shown on the mobile phones display (208 x 320 pixel, ca. 4 x 2 inch). Additionally the user input is sent to the server. In addition to the symbian-specific application framework, which is responsible for displaying dialogues and event handling, the client consists of an audio player, video player and the Bluetooth communication unit.

Temporary Installation and Future Prospects

We see our project as a first step of "multimedia applications to go" with a device that is easy to handle. In addition, our project is not fixed on the Augsburger Puppenkiste: the contents are variable, and a variation of Urmel lebt! Would be possible not only in other museums, but also on fairs or amusement parks.

Following projects could possibly extend our program in a way that the tour could be viewed on personal mobile phones brought along.

Team

  • Reiner Pittinger: project manager, server programming
  • Serena Störlein: game design, storytelling, audio, video and promoting our project
  • Christina Loibl: storytelling, game design, audio, video and PR
  • Andrea Scheungrab: game design, interface- and webdesign, video and produced the Urmel DVD
  • Eva Hanser: interface- and webdesign, game design and video and produced the Urmel DVD-Booklet
  • Johannes Krämer: client programming
  • Michael Parucha: online programming, video-documentation and PR
  • Professor KP Ludwig John and Professor Gerhard Meixner oversaw the project and supported the team with conception and technical advice.

Material and Downloads