Pervasive Games

Description

Quickly emerging from the fast-paced growth of mobile communications and wireless technologies, pervasive games take gaming away from the computer screen and back to the three-dimensional world. Now games can be designed to be played in public spaces like shopping malls, conferences, museums and other non-traditional game venues. Game designers need to understand how to use the world as a gamespace-and both the challenges and advantages of doing so.

This book shows how to change the face of play-who plays, when and where they play and what that play means to all involved. The authors explore aspects of pervasive games that concern game designers: what makes these games compelling, what makes them possible today and how they are made. For game researchers, it provides a solid theoretical, philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the genre.

Pervasive Games covers everything from theory and design to history and marketing.

designers, so that they can learn how to engage players' real-time experiences beyond the mobile phone or computer screen.

-Thirteen case studies with illustrative and inspiring examples make the entire pervasive games design space tangible.

-Provides practical design tips, potential pitfalls, design problems from real games, and inspiration from some of the most interesting pervasive game designers in the world, including Matt Adams, Frank Lantz, and others.

CONTENTS:

Introduction
Case A: Killer: The Game of Assassination
Chapter 1: Games and Pervasive Games
Case B: The Beast; Chapter 2: Pervasive Game Genres
Case C: Shelby Logan's Run
Chapter 3: Historical Influences on Pervasive Games
Case D: Botfighters
Chapter 4: Designing Spatial Expansion
Case E: TBD
Chapter 5: Designing Temporal Expansion
Case F: Momentum
Chapter 6: Designing Social Expansion
Case G: Pac-Manhattan
Chapter 7: Pervasive Game Design Strategies
Case H: Epidemic Menace
Chapter 8: Information Technology in Pervasive Games
Case I: Insectopia
Chapter 9: Pervasive Games on Mobile Phones
Case J: Vem Grter
Chapter 10: The Ethics of Pervasive Games
Case K: REXplorer
Chapter 11: Marketing the Category of Pervasive Games
Case L: Uncle Roy All Around You
Chapter 12: Art and Politics of Pervasive Games
Case M: The Amazing Race
Chapter 13: Pervasive Games in Media Culture
Appendix A: Information Technologies for Appendix B: References