Harnessing Video Game Power for Good - Games With a Purpose
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Part of the point of the image game is to help computers get smarter about images. But there's a whole site devoted to this goal. Called Games With a Purpose, it was launched by Carnegie Mellon and offers five games that let humans show computers how to do tasks that the machines don't normally do well. The site includes ESP, of course. The other four are:
- Matchin – In this game, two players are shown two images and choose which one they like best. As with ESP, the players score points when their choices match. The game is supposed to teach computers what kinds of images people want to see when they search for pictures.
- Squigl – Likely to appeal to artists and doodlers everywhere, this game pairs two players and gives them a word describing part of an image. They then must trace what the word is describing. For example, in the image in the previous section, if the word I'd been given was “lizard,” I'd have to use my mouse to trace as closely around the lizard as I could.
- Verbosity – In this game, the two players alternate between being the describer and the guesser. The describer helps their partner guess the secret word by giving them clues. The guesser, of course, must type the secret word that their partner is describing.
- Tag a Tune – This game requires the ability to listen to music. You and a partner listen to a tune and must describe it. Then, based on the descriptions, you have to decide whether or not you're listening to the same tune. This game features bonus rounds.
Here are some screen shots to whet your interest. First, a look at Matchin:
I took a couple of screen shots for Verbosity, since you're both the describer and guesser in that one. Here's the guesser's screen:
And here is the describer's screen:
Sometimes games get very popular and fill up. There wasn't a slot open for Squigl when I tried to play, for example. And sometimes you will need to wait for a partner, but usually you won't have to wait very long. I played a few games of both Verbosity and Matchin, and while they were both fun, neither quite gripped me in the way that a good game from PopCap's web site does. There is a chat feature on GWAP, but I didn't use it. Oh, and one other thing the site needs to work on: after you finish a game, there is no simple way to click back to the home page or to change games. I literally had to retype the URL into my browser every time I wanted to play a different game. In my opinion, there is really no excuse for that kind of problem.
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