Help

We realise Blowtooth is very different from a lot of games, so hopefully this section can answer any questions.

If you have any other questions you can contact us directly at help@blowtooth.com.

About the Project

Blowtooth was created as a research project looking at pervasive gaming in a surveillance society. See the main "About Blowtooth" page for more information on our motivations.

Blowtooth is developed by the Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre (LiSC) in the UK. We had a research paper published at alt.CHI about Blowtooth. The reference is: Conor Linehan, Ben Kirman, Shaun Lawson and Mark Doughty (2010 - In Press) Blowtooth: Pervasive Gaming in Unique and Challenging Environments, Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems (alt.CHI), April 10-15 2010, Atlanta.

If you have any questions about the project, or have found a bug or problem, contact help@blowtooth.com.

Playing Blowtooth

Once you have installed the game, there is a short tutorial available online, if you want to get started quickly.

The first thing you need to do is download and install the correct client on your mobile phone. Run the application and you will be given instructions on how to start playing. You must provide a nickname to be used within the game, and give Blowtooth permission to access Blowtooth and your Location services. (You will be prompted when to do this)

Click on "search" to look for patsies nearby that have already had "packages" dropped on them by other players. Your phone will scan nearby to find other phones belonging to strangers. It will then check the game database to see if they are carrying anything. If so, you will automatically collect it!

If you don't find any nearby patsies, you can search to find where the nearest patsy was last seen, and how far away they were. This can give you a hint about where to check.

Blowtooth players can be anywhere in the world. You don't *have* to play in airports, but airports provide the best chance of finding packages left by other players.

To "drop" new packages on patsies, just click "drop" on the menu. You will automatically drop new packages on everyone near your location.

You can pick up your own packages, but will be forced to wait 10 minutes to allow the patsy time to escape (or get through airport security)

As you play Blowtooth, you will accumulate rewards in the form of Awards, that give you kudos and additional features (such as new types of packages to drop)

Location in Blowtooth

Locations in Blowtooth can be confusing. The most important thing to note is that you do not need GPS. The most important thing is to be physically near the "patsies" (strangers carrying packages).

You will not be able to pick up a package unless you are within about 10 meters of the real person. Just being in the last location they were seen is not good enough.

The GPS, maps and other "real world" locations are just provided for flavour. It is quite easy to cheat and pretend to be anywhere in the world, but there is no advantage to it. Play along ;)

GPS enabled Android devices will use the real location first, if a GPS signal is available.

Awards

Awards are given to players based on how successful they are at smuggling, and are the main form of recognition in Blowtooth

When you achieve an award, you will be told, and it will appear on your profile page (http://www.blowtooth.com/player/[your_nickname]) and on the Scores Page for other people to admire.

We won't tell you what awards there are available, but there are a lot, and you can discover them for yourself (or maybe check other players profiles to see what you can get)

Some awards give you access to New Packages and other special features!