GB2607038A - Method and related systems for executing an improved online version of the Spot-The-Ball game - Google Patents

Abstract

An improved online version of the traditional Spot-the-Ball game is implemented over a wireless network architecture by one or more servers. The method incorporates one or more video sequences of a game scene with a ball shown and overlays a transition effect over the final frames of the video sequence to obscure the ball position before displaying a still image of the scene with the ball removed or hidden. Related systems for carrying out the disclosed method are also provided.

Description

Title: Method and Related Systems for Executing an Improved Online Version of the Spot-The-Ball Game

Field of Invention.

The present invention relating to improvements in gaming systems and methods, including electronic interactive archive video virtual sports-based gaming systems and methods.

Background

For many people, other than actually playing a sports game, considerable enjoyment may be had by spectating or playing virtual sports games electronically or by having our knowledge and skills tested based upon a sports game.

Spot the ball is a game which became very popular in the UK in the 1980s. It was principally run by newspapers which would feature an image, typically a photograph, depicting a scene from a ball sport, particularly association football, from which the ball had been removed. The readers were invited to indicate were they believed the true position of the center of the ball to be by marking the image with a cross. Readers could make a plurality of guesses and enter a competition by returning their marked image to the newspaper distributor along with a suitable fee which was based on the number of guesses.

The entrant with the guess closest to the true position of the ball would win a cash prize. Alternatively, a prize would be awarded for a set number of the closest guesses, i.e. the entrants that made these guesses shared the prize money. The share that each such entrant received may be determined by the proximity of that entrants' guess to the true position of the ball. The true position of the ball could be defined as the center of the ball as in the original photograph, resulting in a game of skill. Alternatively, the true position of the ball could be defined as that chosen by a panel of experts, since legislation in many countries may prohibit the act of gambling on an event which occurred in the past.

In the modern day, users have access to a vast array of virtual games which excite and engage them using video imagery and special effects. The original version of spot-the-ball can no longer compete with such games in terms of engagement, however the concept of the game is strong and a lot of nostalgia and goodwill is associated with it. It would therefore be desirable for a modernized version of the game which incorporates video footage and special effects to be available to users.

Some attempts have been made to incorporate video footage into the spot-the-ball game mechanic, however this leads to an issue of when and how to display the ball in the clip. lithe ball is visible throughout the video clip up until the frame where a user must guess its location this may be too easy and lower the level of skill being tested, however if the ball is not visible for any of the video footage then the video footage may appear odd, or be too difficult to follow.

It is within this context that the present invention is provided. Summary The present disclosure provides an improved online version of the traditional Spot-the-Ball game implemented over a wireless network architecture by one or more servers. The method incorporates one or more video sequences of a game scene with a ball shown and overlays a transition effect over the final frames of the video sequence to obscure the ball position before displaying a still image of the scene with the ball removed or hidden. Related systems for carrying out the disclosed method are also provided herein.

According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a computer-implemented method of executing an improved online game of Spot-the-ball, the method comprising the steps of: displaying a video sequence of a scene from a sports game in which a ball controlled by a player is visible; overlaying a transition effect on a portion of the end of the video sequence, the transition effect being positioned to obscure the position of the ball in the final frames of the video sequence; displaying a still image of the scene from the sports game with the transition effect removed and the still image having been edited to remove the balk The method further comprises the steps of providing a user interface configured to allow a user to indicate an estimated location, the location comprised of an X co-ordinate and a Y co-ordinate on the still image, for the ball location; receiving an indication of the estimated location; and displaying a still image with a pre-determined X co-ordinate and V co-ordinate representing the true position of the ball revealed, and with a mark showing the position of the indication from the user.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises playing an accompanying soundtrack for the video sequence.

In some embodiments, the user interface includes a cursor position indicator for facilitating accurate selection of an estimated location for the ball.

The interface may also further comprise an associated X and V co-ordinate display indicating the cursor's exact X and Y co-ordinates on the displayed image.

In some embodiments, the transition effect is an animated transition comprising one or more frames.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises the step of communicating to the user a measure of the accuracy of their indication.

Furthermore, the method may include the additional the steps of: determining whether the indication of the user meets a threshold accuracy; calculating, if the threshold accuracy is met, a percentage of a prize pool based on the accuracy; and awarding the user with the calculated percentage of the prize pool.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises the step of, in response to a received indication from a user, verifying whether the user is accessing the game from an account having a required amount of credit for participating.

Additionally, the method may include the step of offering the user the opportunity to purchase additional credit for their account if they are found to have insufficient credit.

In some embodiments, the accuracy of a user's indicated estimate of the position of the ball is calculated by comparison of the position of the selected co-ordinates to the co-ordinates of the true position.

In some embodiments, the user interface provided is configured to allow a user to draw one or more straight lines between points on the image for visual assistance. :3

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a system for executing an improved online game of Spot-the-ball, the system comprising: one or more client devices, each client device comprising a display, and input means, and wireless communication means; and one or more servers, the one or more servers being configured to carry out the method of any one of the above-described embodiments.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.

FIG.1 illustrates a view of an example configuration of a network architecture and set of client devices over which the disclosed method may be implemented.

FIG.2 illustrates a block diagram of an example internal configuration of a client device configured to implement the disclosed method.

FIG.3 illustrates a flow diagram of a set of steps for carrying out the disclosed method.

FIG.4 illustrates an example first frame of a video sequence in an implementation of the disclosed method.

FIGS illustrates an example second frame of a video sequence in an implementation of the disclosed method.

FIG.6 illustrates an example third frame of a video sequence in an implementation of the disclosed method with a transition overlaid.

FIG.7 illustrates an example still image of the scene from the video sequence in an implementation of the disclosed method.

Common reference numerals are used throughout the figures and the detailed description to indicate like elements. One skilled in the art will readily recognize that the above figures are examples and that other architectures, modes of operation, orders of operation, and elements/functions can be provided and implemented without departing from the characteristics and features of the invention, as set forth in the claims.

Detailed Description and Preferred Embodiment

The following is a detailed description of exemplary embodiments to illustrate the principles of the invention. The embodiments are provided to illustrate aspects of the invention, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalent; it is limited only by the claims.

Numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. As used herein, the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well as the singular forms, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

The present disclosure relates to methods and systems for implementing an improved version of the traditional spot-the-ball game online utilising video sequences showing footage of sports games and overlaying a transition effect at the point in time the ball is obscured to ensure the game remains an appropriate test of skill.

Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown an illustrative network architecture that includes a server based service offering or a cloud based service offering 110 which may be used to implement the method of the present disclosure.

The illustrative networked or cloud service 110 is configured to communicate with client devices 118. The illustrative client devices include a personal computer 120, a first laptop 122, a tablet computer 124, a second laptop 126, and a display 128 that has a wired connection to a networked computer 130.

The client devices 118 may be operationally coupled to a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet with a wireless connection. The wireless clients may be communicatively coupled to the WAN via a Wi-Fi (or Bluetooth) access point 132 that is communicatively coupled to an illustrative modem 134, which is communicatively coupled to the WAN. The wireless clients may also be communicatively coupled to the WAN using a proprietary carrier network that includes illustrative communication tower 136.

The core requirement for the network architecture is that each client device can send and receive requests to and from the server or cloud service offering 110, and that each client device has a display for viewing an interface and video sequence provided by the service offering 110 and input mechanisms for making selections as to the estimated location of a ball.

Referring to FIG.2, there is shown the electrical components for an illustrative wireless client device 200 capable of such operations.

For purposes of this patent, the illustrative wireless device 200 is a multimode wireless device such as a smartphone that comprises a first antenna element 202 that is operatively coupled to a duplexer 204, which is operatively coupled to a multimode transmitter module 206, and a multimode receiver module 208.

An illustrative control module 218 comprises a digital signal processor (DSP) 212, a processor 214, and a CODEC 216 that are communicatively coupled to the transmitter 206 and receiver 208. It shall be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the transmitter module and receiver module are typically paired and may be embodied as a transceiver. The illustrative transmitter 206, receiver 208, or transceiver is communicatively coupled to antenna element 202.

The DSP 812 may be configured to perform a variety of operations such as controlling the antenna 202, the multimode transmitter module 206, and the multimode receiver module 208. The processor 214 is operatively coupled to a responsive input sensor 220 such as a keypad or a touch screen.

The processor 214 is also operatively coupled to a memory 222, a display 224, and a sensor 221. The sensor 221 may be used to determine an indoor and outside location for the illustrative wireless device.

Additionally, the processor 212 is also operatively coupled to the CODEC module 216 that performs the encoding and decoding operations and is communicatively coupled to a speaker 226, and a microphone 228. The CODEC module 216 is also communicatively coupled to the display 224 and provides the encoding and decoding operations for video.

The memory 222 includes two different types of memory, namely, volatile memory 223 and nonvolatile memory 225. The volatile memory 223 is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information, such as random access memory (RAM). The non-volatile memory 225 can retain stored information even when the wireless communication device 200 is not powered up. Some illustrative examples of non-volatile memory 225 include flash memory, ROM memory, and hard drive memory.

Wireless device 200 may be a mobile handset, mobile phone, wireless phone, portable cell phone, cellular phone, portable phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a tablet, a portable media device, a wearable computer, or any type of mobile terminal which is regularly carried by an end user and has all the elements necessary for operation in a wireless communication system. The wireless communications include, by way of example and not of limitation, CDMA, WCDMA, GSM, UMTS, or any other wireless communication system such as wireless local area network (WLAN), Wi-Fi or WiMAX.

Referring to FIG.3, a set of steps carried out by one or more servers over a wireless network architecture is shown for implementing the disclosed method and executing an improved version of spot-the-ball.

In a first step 302, the method involves displaying a video sequence of a scene from a sports game in which a ball controlled by a player is visible. This could be any sport where players of the sport interact with a ball, while football or "soccer" is the traditional choice the method could equally well be applied to golf, basketball, tennis, American football, rugby, cricket, hockey, table tennis, baseball, any number of other sports.

The video sequence may be a selected sequence from real footage of a game of the sports that happened in the past and is selected from a database of such video sequences. Alternatively, the sequence could be a simulated or animated sequence.

The user of the client device playing the game will view the played video sequence of the sports game on the display of their own device, received over the wireless architecture. Accompanying audio for the video sequence may be played such as crowd sounds, commentator overlay, or other sound effects to increase the immersion of the user.

In a second step 304, the method involves overlaying a transition effect on a portion of the end of the video sequence, the transition effect being positioned to obscure the position of the ball in the final frames of the video sequence.

For example, this may be at the point of impact where a football player is kicking the football to make a shot at goal. At the point of impact an animated effect may be placed over the position of the ball, obscuring its final movements. As the next step in the game is for the user to try and guess the next location of the ball with great accuracy, the transition effect increases the level of skill required to do this by obscuring the trajectory of the ball slightly.

Furthermore, depending on the animation, the transition from video sequence with a ball shown to still image with no ball shown can be made smoother and less awkward. For example if the animation overlaid is a flourish, the user may be distracted by the flourish making the transition less noticeable.

In a third step 306, the method involves displaying a still image of the scene from the sports game with the transition effect removed and the still image having been edited to remove the ball. This is no different from a standard game of spot the ball.

The true position of the hidden/removed ball is known to the server hosting the game. For example, a pixel X and Y co-ordinate of the exact centre of where the ball is may be associated with the still image.

In a fourth step 308, the method involves providing a user interface configured to allow a user to indicate an estimated location, the location comprised of an X co-ordinate and a V co-ordinate on the still image, for the ball location.

Generally, this will involve the user hovering a cursor or finger over their laptop screen or touchscreen device and moving it to the position they believe the centre of the ball is and clicking/pressing.

The interface may assist the user with this by providing various cursor options. For example the cursor may be in the form of a target with a pinpoint centre to assist with accuracy and increase immersion in the game. Furthermore, the actual X and Y co-ordinates of the current cursor position may be displayed alongside the cursor.

Other accuracy assistance effects are also envisioned, such as for example allowing a user to draw visual aids such as one or more lines on the still image to better estimate the direction of the gazes of players shown in the still image.

In a fifth step 310, the method involves receiving an indication of the estimated location. This is simply the notification received by the server containing the information about where the user actually selected the estimated position of the centre of the ball to be.

Finally, in a sixth step 312, the method involves and displaying a still image with a pre-determined X co-ordinate and Y co-ordinate representing the true position of the ball revealed, and with a mark showing the position of the indication from the user.

This step allows the user to compare their guess of the estimated location to the true position on the still image, both increasing their immersion and engagement with the game by allowing them to learn how well they performed and allowing them to consider ways to improve their technique for the next game.

This stage may also involve the calculation and distribution of prizes based on the accuracy of the guess compared to the true position.

Referring to FIGs 4 to 7, a specific example implementation of the disclosed method is shown, with FIGs 4, 5, and 6 showing consecutive frames of a video sequence displayed on a client device according to the disclosed method, followed by a still image shown in FIG.7 where the user must estimate the location of the ball which has been edited out.

In all figures a set of defending players 402, including a goalkeeper 404, are shown on a pitch 406, with a striker 408 from an opposing team moving forward on the pitch to kick ball 410 into goal 412. A match official 414 is also shown.

As can be seen, striker 408 advances forward between FIG.4 and FIG.5 and strikes the ball 410 towards goal 412. FIG.5 essentially shown the frame at the point of impact of the striker's foot and the ball 410, meaning the ball will be travelling at maximum velocity at that point.

In FIG.6, a transition effect 416 is overlaid over this point of impact, obscuring the ball 410 at the point of impact and signalling the transition from video sequence to still image.

In FIG.7, both the ball 410 and the transition effect 416 have been removed from the still image which otherwise shows the same scene from the same game at a subsequent moment in time (although it could also be showing previous moments in time in some examples). The user is provided with a target-like cursor 418 for guessing the new position of the centre of the now obscured ball 410, and must use various factors to estimate this such as the trajectory the foot of the striker 408 was moving in, and slight variations in the positions of the goalkeeper 404 and other player's postures and gaze directions.

It should be understood that the operations described herein may be carried out by any processor. In particular, the operations may be carried out by, but are not limited to, one or more computing environments used to implement the method such as a data center, a cloud computing environment, a dedicated hosting environment, and/or one or more other computing environments in which one or more assets used by the method re implemented; one or more computing systems or computing entities used to implement the method; one or more virtual assets used to implement the method; one or more supervisory or control systems, such as hypervisors, or other monitoring and management systems, used to monitor and control assets and/or components; one or more communications channels for sending and receiving data used to implement the method; one or more access control systems for limiting access to various components, such as firewalls and gateways; one or more traffic and/or routing systems used to direct, control, and/or buffer, data traffic to components, such as routers and switches; one or more communications endpoint proxy systems used to buffer, process, and/or direct data traffic, such as load balancers or buffers; one or more secure communication protocols and/or endpoints used to encrypt/decrypt data, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols, used to implement the method; one or more databases used to store data; one or more internal or external services used to implement the method; one or more backend systems, such as backend servers or other hardware used to process data and implement the method; one or more software systems used to implement the method; and/or any other assets/components in which the method is deployed, implemented, accessed, and run, e.g., operated, as discussed herein, and/or as known in the art at the time of filing, and/or as developed after the time of filing.

As used herein, the terms "computing system", "computing device", and ''computing entity", include, but are not limited to, a virtual asset; a server computing system; a workstation; a desktop computing system; a mobile computing system, including, but not limited to, smart phones, portable devices, and/or devices worn or carried by a user; a database system or storage cluster; a switching system; a router; any hardware system; any communications system; any form of proxy system; a gateway system; a firewall system; a load balancing system; or any device, subsystem, or mechanism that includes components that can execute all, or part, of any one of the processes and/or operations as described herein.

As used herein, the terms computing system and computing entity, can denote, but are not limited to, systems made up of multiple: virtual assets; server computing systems; workstations; desktop computing systems; mobile computing systems; database systems or storage clusters; switching systems; routers; hardware systems; communications systems; proxy systems; gateway systems; firewall systems; load balancing systems; or any devices that can be used to perform the processes and/or operations as described herein.

As used herein, the term "computing environment" includes, but is not limited to, a logical or physical grouping of connected or networked computing systems and/or virtual assets using the same infrastructure and systems such as, but not limited to, hardware systems, software systems, and networking/communications systems. Typically, computing environments are either known environments, e.g., "trusted" environments, or unknown, e.g., "untrusted" environments. Typically, trusted computing environments are those where the assets, infrastructure, communication and networking systems, and security systems associated with the computing systems and/or virtual assets making up the trusted computing environment, are either under the control of, or known to, a party.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, as would be apparent from the above discussion, it is appreciated that throughout the above description, discussions utilizing terms such as, but not limited to, "activating", "accessing", "adding", "applying", "analyzing", "associating", "calculating", "capturing", "classifying", "comparing", "creating", "defining", "detecting", "determining"" "eliminating", "extracting", "forwarding", "generating", "identifying", "implementing", "obtaining", "processing", ''providing", "receiving", "sending", "storing", "transferring", "transforming", "transmitting", "using", etc., refer to the action and process of a computing system or similar electronic device that manipulates and operates on data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computing system memories, resisters, caches or other information storage, transmission or display devices.

Those of skill in the art will readily recognize that the algorithms and operations presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computing system, computer architecture, computer or industry standard, or any other specific apparatus. Various general purpose systems may also be used with programs in accordance with the teaching herein, or it may prove more convenient/efficient to construct more specialized apparatuses to perform the required operations described herein. The required structure for a variety of these systems will be apparent to those of skill in the art, along with equivalent variations. In addition, the present invention is not described with reference to any particular programming language and it is appreciated that a variety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of the present invention as described herein, and any references to a specific language or languages are provided for illustrative purposes only and for enablement of the contemplated best mode of the invention at the time of filing.

Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one having ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and the present disclosure and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

The disclosed embodiments are illustrative, not restrictive. While specific configurations of the method and system have been described in a specific manner referring to the illustrated embodiments, it is understood that the present invention can be applied to a wide variety of solutions which fit within the scope and spirit of the claims. There are many alternative ways of implementing the invention.

It is to be understood that the embodiments of the invention herein described are merely illustrative of the application of the principles of the invention. Reference herein to details of the illustrated embodiments is not intended to limit the scope of the claims, which themselves recite those features regarded as essential to the invention. 1.3

Claims (12)

1. Claims What is claimed is: 1. A computer-implemented method of executing an improved online game of Spot-the-ball, the method comprising the steps of: displaying a video sequence of a scene from a sports game in which a ball controlled by a player is visible; overlaying a transition effect on a portion of the end of the video sequence, the transition effect being positioned to obscure the position of the ball in the final frames of the video sequence; displaying a still image of the scene from the sports game with the transition effect removed and the still image having been edited to remove the ball; providing a user interface configured to allow a user to indicate an estimated location, the location comprised of an X co-ordinate and a Y co-ordinate on the still image, for the ball location; receiving an indication of the estimated location; and displaying a still image with a pre-determined X co-ordinate and Y co-ordinate representing the true position of the ball revealed, and with a mark showing the position of the indication from the user.
2. 2. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, the method further comprising playing an accompanying soundtrack for the video sequence.
3. 3. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the user interface includes a cursor position indicator for facilitating accurate selection of an estimated location for the ball.
4. 4. A computer-implemented method according to claim 3, wherein the interface further comprises an associated X and Y co-ordinate display indicating the cursor's exact X and Y co-ordinates on the displayed image.
5. 5. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the transition effect is an animated transition comprising one or more frames.
6. 6. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, the method further comprising the step of communicating to the user a measure of the accuracy of their indication.
7. 7. A computer-implemented method according to claim 6, the method further comprising the steps of: determining whether the indication of the user meets a threshold accuracy; calculating, if the threshold accuracy is met, a percentage of a prize pool based on the accuracy; and awarding the user with the calculated percentage of the prize pool.
8. 8. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, the method further comprising the step of, in response to a received indication from a user, verifying whether the user is accessing the game from an account having a required amount of credit for participating.
9. 9. A computer-implemented method according to claim 8, the method further comprising the step of offering the user the opportunity to purchase additional credit for their account if they are found to have insufficient credit.
10. 10. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the accuracy of a user's indicated estimate of the position of the ball is calculated by comparison of the position of the selected co-ordinates to the co-ordinates of the true position.
11. 11. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the user interface provided is configured to allow a user to draw one or more straight lines between points on the image for visual assistance.
12. 12. A system for executing an improved online game of Spot-the-ball, the system comprising: one or more client devices, each client device comprising a display, and input means, and wireless communication means; and one or more servers, the one or more servers being configured to carry out the method of any one of claims 1 to 11.