Rule Game Server Update

Documentation:

• http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu:7150/w2020/ -- Production (v 1.*)
• http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu:7150/w2020-dev/ -- Development (v 2.*)

Overall Game Server Architecture

What's new in Game Server 2.*

• Custom colors
• Custom shapes
• Subdirectories
• "Pick" operation
• New balancer
• Rule syntax enhancements
• Experiment plan validator
• Version check
• Backward compatibility
• Captive Game Server can emulate Web Game Server more closely

Custom colors and shapes

• Use arbitrary colors names
• List colors in the color map file
• Use arbitrary shape names (subdir OK)
• Provide an SVG file for each shape (maybe in a subdir)

Structure of an experiment plan

Experiment control files:

You can use subdirectories

• For each kind of files, a directory under /opt/tomcat/game-data:
  • trial-lists
  • rules
  • boards
  • shapes
• For each experiment, you can use an experiment-specific subdirectory for...
  • rule set files
  • initial board files
  • shape files
• A single color map file for all colors, though
• More manageable data for multiple experiments

Very limited use of wwildcards: In trial list files, to use all shapes from a directory:

      ...,shapes,...
      ...,tigers/*,...
    

"Pick" operation

• New trial list parameters to control user experience:
  • feedback_switches=fixed: the player sees which game pieces are movable
  • feedback_switches=free: the player does not know which pieces are movable until he tries
  • free_wrong_cost=0.3: the cost of a move attempt ("pick") on an immovable piece
• The new version of GUI client supports this.

New balancer

• Automatic "balancing" when assigning new players to trial lists
• Old: goal = equalize the number of players initially assigned to each trial list
• New: goal = equalize the number of players "active" in each trial list
• "Active player" = either
  • Received a completion code
  • Very recently registered, and, hopefully, still playing
• Experiment manager can create a "defect file" to e.g. account for players who received a completion code, but should be ignored

Rule syntax enhancements

An atom of a rule line:

      (count, shapes, colors, positions, buckets)
    

All-new destination bucket arithmetic:

• Set arithmetic: every expression is interpreted as a set
• Variables such as p,pc,ps evaluate to an empty set [] or a set of 1 element
• Set union: [S1, S2]
• Arithmetic on sets produces a cross product:
  • [] + [x,y] = []
  • [a] + [x,y] = [a+x,a+y]
  • [a,b] + [x,y] = [a+x,a+y,b+x,b+y]
• Equality operation: [x1,x2,...]==[y1,y2,...] gives:
  • empty set [] (if the two sets have no elements in common);
  • [1] (if the two sets have at least one common element).
• Negation:
  • ![] gives [1];
  ![any non-empty set] gives [].
• Modulo-4 postprocessing:
  • Nearby+[1,3] : identify the bucket X closest to the object; use eithers of the two buckets closest to X
• Can do fairly complex logic, e.g.
  • [!p*[0,1,2,3], !!p*(p+1)] : start with any bucket, then continue clockwise

Experiment plan validator

You have created an experiment plan?

Test it!

The validator checks the presence of all files, rule syntax, etc

Version check

You can check what version you're using

Client Version [environment-commitHash]: dev-f6639a9edaaf6dd6fa2c07ba8bf95bb8abe96c96
Server URL: http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu:7150/w2020-dev
Server Version: 2.006
  

Backward compatibility

An older version of the GUI client will still work with the new (2.*) Game Server
• An older experiment plan (from the 1.* era) will still work correctly with the 2.* Game Server

• Prod:
  • Client: http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu/rule-game/prod/
  • Server: http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu:7150/w2020
• Dev:
  • Client: http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu/rule-game/dev/
  • Server: http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu:7150/w2020-dev

E.g.

• http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu/rule-game/prod/?exp=experiment_plan&workerId=new_unique_worker_id
• http://sapir.psych.wisc.edu/rule-game/dev/?exp=experiment_plan&workerId=new_unique_worker_id

Let's promote dev to prod

• Let's do a bit of testing on dev...
• and then promote it to prod!

New in the Captive Game Server

• Better compatibility with the human subject experience
• Can feed a trial list file to the Captive Game Server, and tell it to play as per the parameter set in a specific line.
Not trying to emulate the flow control of human-subjects experiments:
• transition between normal series and bonus series;
• ending normal or bonus series
• rewards

What's next in Game Server 3.*?

Wildcard syntax for a wider object space - rules based on multiple features of objects