GB2376420A

GB2376420A - Interactive game system

Info

Publication number: GB2376420A
Application number: GB0111142A
Authority: GB
Inventors: David Anthony Gillooley
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2001-05-05
Filing date: 2001-05-05
Publication date: 2002-12-18
Also published as: GB0111142D0

Abstract

An interactive game system, and associated method, comprises a control system 10 that allows simultaneous telephonic communication with a plurality of contestants to supply a task to the contestants. The control system 10 further allows: the identification of each contestant from information gained from each contestant's telephone; the receiving and recognising of a response to the task from each contestant; the judging of whether the response is correct; the recording of the time taken to answer the question by each contestant; the association of each contestant with their response time and placing the contestants in rank order depending on the time taken to complete the task. The task may be broadcast to the contestants either audibly, by radio 28, or visually, by television 26. The task is preferably a multiple-choice question, the answers to which are associated with a key of the telephone equipment 18, or an ordering task. The contestants may be identified by the incoming subscriber number, by entering their telephone number or by pre-registering and being supplied a personal identification number. The system may disconnect contestant who fail to complete the task by a prescribed period or complete the task incorrectly.

Description

DESCRIPTION INTERACTIVE GAME SYSTEM The present invention relates to interactive game systems and in particular to interactive game systems which are played over a telephone network.

Telephone contests currently tend to fit into one of two basic types. In the first type, a question or series of questions with several possible answers is broadcast on television or radio or published in newspapers, magazines and the like. The question or questions are normally very simple in order to encourage a large number of people to enter the competition, which normally involves telephoning a premium rate telephone number. Entrants normally answer the question or questions by keying the appropriate buttons on the telephone to select one of the possible answers when prompted by an automated answering system.

The answering system is able to judge whether the correct answer or answers have been selected and prompts each entrant answering correctly to record his or her name and contact details on an automated answering machine. Details of all "successful"entrants are then collated and the desired number of winners is selected randomly from the list of successful entrants.

However, in order to make such a game financially viable it is necessary to maximize the number of entrants and thereby the amount of revenue generated from the premium rate telephone number particularly to offset the cost of the prize (s) and to make a profit thereafter. Unless the value of the prize is such that a large number of contestants would be willing to guess the correct answer, it is necessary to make the question or questions so easy that there is very little skill

required by entrants. In either case, there is a significant degree of luck involved in determining the winner or winners and in general a greater degree of skill or knowledge on the part of the contestants is unlikely to increase the likelihood of winning.

In a variation of the above, contestants are required to telephone a premium rate telephone number, whereupon they will be asked one or more questions by an automated answering system, each question having several possible answers. Each contestant selects the desired answer by keying the appropriate buttons on the telephone when prompted by the answering system.

The answering system determines whether the answer is correct and, if so, prompts the caller to record his or her details. Several people are chosen at random from those contestants who have answered correctly and are invited to appear on a quiz show which is broadcast on television.

Although this variation does require a greater degree of skill, depending upon the difficulty of the question (s), there is still a large element of randomness or luck in being selected from the list of entrants who have answered the question (s) successfully.

In the second general type, contestants are invited to telephone a number broadcast on a television or radio programme and the required number of people to be asked questions over the telephone on the show is selected. The selection can be random or on the basis of the order in which the contestants telephoned (e. g. the one hundredth contestant to call could be selected) or on the basis of an telephone interview with the contestant to assess their suitability. In any case, the

selected contestants are asked questions on the program and the telephone call is broadcast. Those answering the required number of questions correctly are declared as winners.

As for the first general type, the skill and knowledge of the contestants plays a minimal part in determining who will win.

It is an aim of the present invention to provide an interactive game system which allows participation by a large number of contestants and which rewards those contestants having greater skill and/or knowledge.

In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, an interactive game system comprises a control means capable of simultaneous telephonic communication with a plurality of contestants and means for substantially simultaneously communicating a task or question to the contestants, the control means further comprising: (a) means for identifying each contestant on the basis of information from the contestant's telephone; (b) means for receiving and recognising a response to the set task or question from each contestant on the basis of information input to the contestant's telephone; (c) means for judging whether the response of each contestant is correct; (d) timing means to measure the elapsed time between setting of the task or question and recognising each correct response; (e) means for associating the measured elapsed time with the identification of each contestant; and

(f) means for ranking the contestants on the basis of the measured elapsed times.

Such a system allows a very large number of contestants to participate simultaneously and determines the winner or winners on the basis of the time taken to complete a task or answer a question correctly, thereby introducing a significant element of skill and reducing the randomness of identifying winners.

Preferably, the means for simultaneously communicating the task or question to contestants comprises means for broadcasting the task or question.

The task or question is preferably broadcast on television and/or radio. This allows anyone with access to a television or radio and a telephone to enter the competition.

The task or question may be a question with several possible answers, only one of which is correct, and each associated with a particular key on the keypad of a telephone, selection of the desired answer being made by pressing the appropriate key. Alternatively, the task may be to determine the correct order of a series of items (e. g. the order of historical events, the population of countries, the height of mountains etc. ), each item associated with a particular key on the keypad, the task being answered by pressing the appropriate keys in the correct order.

The means for identifying each contestant may comprise means for recognising the incoming dialer subscribing (IDS) signal. Alternatively, or in addition, the monitoring means may be arranged to prompt each contestant to key in his or her telephone number. As a modification, it may also be possible for

contestants to pre-register their details (e. g. name, address, telephone number) and to be given a unique identification code (which would identify the person rather than the telephone) and for the monitoring means to prompt each contestant to key in the code, if available.

The game system may be arranged in various stages, if desired. For example the monitoring means may be adapted to disconnect those contestants (preferably after sending a suitable message) who have responded to the task or question incorrectly or not within a predetermined period. The remaining successful contestants may then be set a further task or question, with the answers being ranked in time order as described previously. Further stages may be included, if desired.

Preferably, contestants can be notified that a competition is about to start by an appropriate message, preferably broadcast on television and/or radio. This may take the form of a verbal and/or visual message or may involve the broadcasting of a distinctive sound or tune associated with the competition.

Preferably, the control means will comprise a plurality of separate control means, each accessible by telephone numbers associated with the locality in which it is based. In this way, it is hoped to avoid problems of overloading the telephone system and to remove any advantage which may be gained by contestants based locally to a single control means.

In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, a control method for a telephone system capable of simultaneous telephonic communication with a plurality of contestants in an interactive game comprises:

(a) identifying each contestant on the basis of information from the contestant's telephone; (b) receiving and recognising a response to a set task or question from each contestant on the basis of information input to the contestant's telephone; (c) judging whether the response of each contestant is correct; (d) measuring the elapsed time between setting of the task or question and recognising each correct response; (e) associating the measured elapsed time with the identification of each contestant; and (f) ranking the contestants on the basis of the measured elapsed times.

In accordance with a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer program for carrying out the method in accordance with the second aspect of the present invention.

By way of example only, specific embodiments of the present invention will now be described, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which :- Fig. 1 is a schematic illustration of a first embodiment of interactive game system in accordance with the present invention; Fig. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating one process of operation of the interactive game system of Fig. 1; Fig. 3 is a representation of an example of television screen layout which could be used in conjunction with the present invention; and Fig. 4 is a schematic illustration of a second embodiment of interactive game system in accordance with the present invention.

Referring firstly to Fig. 1, the first embodiment interactive game system in accordance with the present invention comprises a control means 10 to which a large number of telephone lines (normally several thousand) 12 are connected.

The control means itself comprises a computer 14 and an input/output device 16 for connecting the computer 14 to the telephone lines 12. In use, the other end of each telephone line will be connected to a telephone 18 having a keypad 20 to be operated by a contestant.

The control means 10 may also be accessed by remote computers 30 via an Internet connection 32 and is in addition arranged to communicate with a television or radio station 24 which broadcasts signals via a transmitter 25.

In general terms, the television or radio station broadcasts a signal that a competition is about to start. Contestants 20 then telephone the appropriate telephone number which connects them to the control means. A question or task (or, more likely, a series of questions or tasks) is then broadcast by the control means and the contestants input their answers by keying the appropriate buttons on the telephone keypad 20. The control means determines whether each answer is correct and determines the time taken for each correct answer to be received and ranks each contestant accordingly. A detailed description of the operation is given below with respect to Fig. 2, in which"step"is abbreviated to"S"for convenience.

At S 100 the television or radio station 24 broadcasts a radio and/or television signal that the competition is about to start. This could be a visual signal for television and an audible signal for radio (and for television). In one

preferred arrangement, the control means broadcasts a distinctive sound associated with the competition. This could be a signature tune, but a preferred sound is a letter of the alphabet in Morse code, e. g. the letter Q (--.-) which could be repeatedly transmitted for a period of time, alerting people watching/listening the relevant television or radio programmes that the competition is about to start.

Anyone wishing to participate in the competition would then telephone the appropriate number S102, usually a premium rate number and preferably broadcast with the signal that the competition is about to start. As indicated above, people may also participate by means of a computer 30, but the following description will refer to telephonic communication only. At S104, the control means determines whether all available lines are in use or the time allowed for contestants to telephone has been reached and, if so no more calls are accepted S 106). At S 108, the control means would receive each call and at S 110 would determine whether the telephone number of the incoming caller can be identified.

If yes, the process skips to S 112. If not, the control means requests the caller to input the telephone number at S 114. If the telephone number has been identified at S 116, the process skips to S 112. If not, S 114 and S 116 are repeated until the telephone number of the caller has been correctly identified. If communication is made by means of a computer 30, the participant may be asked for some other identification, e. g an e-mail address.

At S 112, the control means broadcasts a task or question to be tackled by the contestants. As indicated in Fig. 3, this may be in the form of a question 36 read out by a question master 38 on television and appearing on a television

screen 40, and for which three possible answers 42a, 42b, 42c are given, only one of which is correct. Each answer has a number (e. g. 1, 2 or 3) associated with it and by pressing the appropriate number on the keypad 20 each contestant selects one of the answers SI 18. To make it fairer for contestants listening to a radio broadcast, each possible answer 42a, 42b, 42c would only appear on the screen as it is read out by the question master.

At S 120, the control means judges whether or not the correct answer has been given for each contestant. If not, at S 122 the control means 10 sends a message to each unsuccessful contestant that the wrong answer has been given and at S 124 the telephone connection is terminated. In one preferred arrangement, an audible signal (e. g the repetition of the Morse code for Q, as before) is heard by a contestant for as long as he or she is still in the game but terminates as soon as the contestant leaves the game. If the correct answer has been given, the control means determines at S 126 the time between the commencement of broadcasting of the question and the receipt of the correct answer. At S128 the details of the contestants answering correctly are matched with the response times and at S 130 are ranked in the time order in which the question was correctly answered.

One option is then to notify at S132 those contestants deemed to be winners on the basis of their time ranking (e. g. the fastest 25 receive a prize).

However, a preferred option is to set a further task to those contestants who have successfully completed the first task, in other words to repeat S 112 and S 118 to S130 (identified at Sl 12, and Sl 17,, to S130, in Fig. 2). This loop can be repeated any number of times as desired by the competition organisers (indicated at S 1120

and S117n to S130n in Fig. 2) until a winner (or winners) are declared. This is normally done on the basis of the accumulated time to carry out each of the tasks correctly but can, for example, be done on the basis of the response to one or more particular tasks.

If several questions or tasks are set, the input of correct answers can act as a code. For example, for 17 questions (A to Q) the correct answers might be 12123223212232123, where each question has three possible answers. If the total time for answering all the questions were, say, 17.569 seconds this may be a winning combination. The code is input to the control means 10 from the television or radio station for each individual question, thereby maximising the security of the system.

In either case, at S 134, the television or radio station broadcasts a signal that the competition is over and, preferably, also gives the results (e. g. accumulated times) of the winners. At S 136 a list of winners is produced who can then be telephoned by the competition organisers in order to be informed of their prize.

The embodiment of Fig. 4 is very similar to that of Figs. 1 to 3, and the same features are identified by the same reference numerals. However, it differs from the first embodiment in that instead of having a single control means 10, there is a plurality of regional control means lOa, 1Ob..... l0n. Contestants call their nearest regional control means lOa, 1 Ob.... I On which performs all of the functions of the control means 10 for the first embodiment up to S 122. At this step, the results from the regional control means lOa, 1 Ob.... 1 On are communicated

to a central control means lOx which carries out the ranking procedures. Such an arrangement is less likely to encounter problems with telephone line capacity and would help to remove any advantage arising from location of a contestant near to a single control means.

The correct answer code for each question is preferably input to each of the regional control means I Oa, I Ob,... I On from the central control means lOx as each question is set, thereby maximising the security of the system.

The invention is not restricted to the details of the foregoing embodiments.

For example, the response times of the contestants may not be timed for each stage. The system may be arranged, for example, merely to determine whether a correct response has been made within a preset time and, if so, to allow the contestant to proceed to a further stage which may or may not be timed.

However, ultimately at least one response time will be recorded for each remaining contestant in order to determine the winner or winners.

Moreover, although the system is primarily intended for use with television and/or radio broadcasts, the system may be applicable to other forms of mass communication (e. g. Internet access by computer, indicated at 30 in Figs. I and 4), particularly as the speed of such forms of communication increases.

Furthermore, whilst the embodiments describe the use of fixed line telephones, the invention is equally applicable to mobile telephones.

Other options include the setting of tasks other than questions. For example, the task may be to identify the correct order of a series of items (e. g. to place historical events in the correct order) each of which is associated with a

particular key on the keypad, the correct response being achieved by pressing the keys in the appropriate order.

G"\CLIENT\400-404\GAC6\404300\GB\MASTER WPD

Claims

1. An interactive game system comprising a control means capable of simultaneous telephonic communication with a plurality of contestants and means for substantially simultaneously communicating a task or question to the contestants, the control means further comprising: (a) means for identifying each contestant on the basis of information from the contestant's telephone; (b) means for receiving and recognising a response to the set task or question from each contestant on the basis of information input to the contestant's telephone; (c) means for judging whether the response of each contestant is correct; (d) timing means to measure the elapsed time between setting of the task or question and recognising each correct response; (e) means for associating the measured elapsed time with the identification of each contestant; and (f) means for ranking the contestants on the basis of the measured elapsed times.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the means for substantially simultaneously communicating the task or question to contestants comprises means for broadcasting the task or question.

3. A system as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the task or question comprises a question with several possible answers, only one of which is correct, and each of which is associated with a particular key on the key pad of a

telephone, selection of the desired answer being made by pressing the appropriate key.

4. The system as claimed in claim I or claim 2, wherein the task comprises determining the correct order of a series of items, each item being associated with a particular key on the key pad, the task being answered by pressing the appropriate keys in the correct order.

5. A system as claimed in any of the preceding claims, wherein the means for identifying each contestant comprises means for recognising the incoming dialer subscribing (IDS) signal.

6. A system as claimed in any of the preceding claims, wherein the control means is arranged to prompt each contestant to key in his or her telephone number.

7. A system as claimed in any of the preceding claims, comprising means for pre-registering of a contestant's details, associating a unique identification code with the contestant and means for prompting each contestant to key in the unique identification code.

8. A system as claimed in any of the preceding claims, wherein the control means disconnects those contestants adjudged to have responded to the task unsatisfactorily.

9. A system as claimed in claim 8, wherein the control means disconnects those contestants who have responded to the task or question incorrectly or not within a predetermined period.

10. A system as claimed in any of the preceding claims, comprising

means for setting a further task or question, with the answers being ranked in time order.

11. A system as claimed in claim 10, comprising a plurality of further stages.

12. A system as claimed in any of the preceding claims, comprising means for issuing a message that a competition is about to start.

13. A system as claimed in claim 12, comprising means for broadcasting a message.

14. A system as claimed in claim 13, comprising means for broadcasting a verbal and/or visual message.

15. A system as claimed in claim 13 or claim 14, comprising means for broadcasting a distinctive sound or tune.

16. A system as claimed in any of the preceding claims, comprising a plurality of separate control means, each accessible by telephone numbers associated with the locality in which it is based.

17. A control method for a telephone system capable of simultaneous telephonic communication with a plurality of contestants in an interactive game comprising : (a) identifying each contestant on the basis of information from the contestant's telephone; (b) receiving and recognising a response to a set task or question from each contestant on the basis of information input to the contestant's telephone; (c) judging whether the response of each contestant is correct ;

(d) measuring the elapsed time between setting of the task or question and recognising each correct response; (e) associating the measured elapsed time with the identification of each contestant; and (f) ranking the contestants on the basis of the measured elapsed times.

18. A method as claimed in claim 17, wherein the task or question is broadcast.

19. A method as claimed in claim 17 or claim 18, wherein the task or question comprises a question with several possible answers, only one of which is correct, and each of which is associated with a particular key on the keypad of a telephone, selection of the desired answer being made by pressing the appropriate key.

20. A method as claimed in claim 17 or claim 18, wherein the task comprises determining the correct order of a series of items, each item being associated with a particular key on the keypad, the task being answered by pressing the appropriate keys in the correct order.

21. A method as claimed in any of claims 17 to 20, wherein each contestant is identified by recognition of the incoming dialer subscribing (IDS) signal.

22. A method as claimed in any of claims 17 to 21, wherein each contestant is prompted to key in his or her telephone number.

23. A method as claimed in any of claims 17 to 22, comprising preregistering a contestant's details and associating a unique identification code with

the contestant and wherein each contestant is prompted to key in the unique identification code.

24. A method as claimed in any of claims 17 to 23, wherein those contestants adjudged to have responded to the task unsatisfactorily are disconnected.

25. A method as claimed in claim 24, wherein those contestants who have responded to the task or question incorrectly or not within a predetermined period are disconnected.

26. A method as claimed in any of claims 17 to 25, wherein a further task or question is set, with the answers being ranked in time order.

27. A method as claimed in claim 26, wherein a plurality of further stages are set.

28. A method as claimed in any of claims 17 to 27, wherein a message is issued that a competition is abaout to start.

29. A method as claimed in claim 28, wherein a message is broadcast.

30. A method as claimed in claim 29, wherein a verbal and/or visual message is broadcast.

31. A method as claimed in claim 29 or claim 30, wherein a distinctive sound or tune is broadcast.

32. A method as claimed in any of claims 17 to 31, wherein the telephonic communication is carried out by a plurality of separate control means, each accessible by telephone numbers associated with the locality in which it is based.

33. A computer program for carrying out the method as claimed in any of

claims 17 to 32.

34. An interactive game system substantially as herein described, with reference to, and as illustrated in, the accompanying drawings.

35. A control method for a telephone system substantially as herein described, with reference to, and as illustrated in, the accompanying drawings.