Mermaids is a Massively Multiplayer Game created with the Emergent Game Group {egg}, my research group at Georgia Tech. The game was set in an underwater world and its research objective is to experiment with the use of emergent social behavior as a design material. This meant crafting a game that had some story elements, but left others open for players to create on their own. The game had a unique gesture-based interface where players would draw glyphs on the screen to initiate certain spells or skills. Mermaids was initially developed on the Multiverse MMG platform, then later in Unity. In 2007, the Phase 1 Prototype was presented at the Game Developers Conference, Indie Game Developers Conference, the SIGGRAPH Sandbox, and the Austin Game Developers Conference. For more on the project visit: http://egg.lmc.gatech.edu/?cat=8.
More on Mermaids:
Pearce. C. and Ashmore, C. (2007). “Principles of Emergent Design in Online Games: Mermaids Phase 1 Prototype.” Proceedings, ACM SIGGRAPH Sandbox, 2007.
Mastrapa, G. (2007). Celia Pearce Swims with Mermaids in “MMOs Go Indie: The Indie MMO Game Developers Conference 2007 Report.” Gamasutra, May 9, 2007.
Harvey, A. and Samyn, M. (2007). Tale of Tales Interview with Celia Pearce. Tale of Tales Web site. (June 2007)
Wood, J. (2007). IMGDC: Celia Pearce and Mermaids: MMORPG.com Exclusive Feature. MMORPG.co. (April 19, 2007)