Central Server Score Tracking for Amusement Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing amusement devices only maintain a limited number of top scores locally and do not allow easy comparison or tracking of player scores across multiple devices, as local leaderboards are often reset, making it difficult for players to access and compare their best scores.
Innovation Solution
A system where amusement devices communicate with a central server over a network to store and update player accounts, allowing for the tracking and retrieval of best scores across multiple devices, enabling players to access and compare their scores from any connected device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a local leaderboard is maintained on each amusement device, then the top scores can be displayed on the device, but the scores are lost when the leaderboard is reset and cannot be accessed across multiple devices
Solution Approach 1:
A central server is introduced as an intermediary between amusement devices and player scores. The server stores player account data including best scores, and devices communicate with the server to retrieve and display scores. This mediator ensures score persistence across device resets and enables cross-device score access without requiring complex distributed storage systems on each device.
Solution Approach 2:
The score storage system transitions from a single-device local storage model to a networked multi-device storage model. By adding the network dimension, scores are no longer confined to individual devices but are accessible across the entire amusement device network through the central server, enabling score portability and persistence.
2Ease of operation
If the leaderboard is reset frequently to encourage player turnover, then new players are motivated to play, but existing players lose their score history and cannot compare scores across different devices
Solution Approach 1:
The central server acts as a persistent mediator that maintains player account data independent of local device leaderboards. When local leaderboards are reset, the server preserves the complete score history for each player, allowing scores to be retrieved and displayed on any device that connects to the server, thus preventing information loss while maintaining operational flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates and maintains copies of player score data across multiple locations - the central server stores the master copy of player accounts and best scores, while individual devices can retrieve and display copies of this data. This copying mechanism ensures score availability even when local storage is reset.
3Adaptability or versatility
If only a select number of top scores are maintained locally, then the leaderboard remains manageable in size, but players cannot easily compare their scores across multiple amusement devices
Solution Approach 1:
The central server provides a universal score storage and retrieval service that serves all amusement devices in the network. Instead of each device maintaining separate limited leaderboards, the server consolidates score data for all players across all devices, enabling any device to display any player's best scores regardless of where they were achieved.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of tracking electronic game score information for a plurality of players participating in an amusement system is disclosed. The amusement system includes at least one amusement device communicating with a central server over a network. The amusement device has a display, a memory storing a plurality of electronic games and a controller. The central server maintains a plurality of player accounts corresponding to the plurality of players. Each of the player accounts includes best score information for at least one of the plurality of electronic games played by the respective player on the amusement device. The central server receives score update information associated with the player accounts from the amusement device and updates the player accounts with the received score update information.