Update – Julian Bleecker wrote to note that he enjoyed the notes but I got his last name wrong – sorry, Julian!!! That’s the result of trying to take notes from the very back of the room while not having a conference agenda handy.
Looking at the way physical environments become computational grids – physical structures for play in the real world in which different kinds of social groups and formations come together and engage in playful activity.
The way the social network leaks into physical space – not just the Internet, but telephony an dother technologies.
Paths are the interface – the way people navigate the city – the city as a game board grid.
Teh things that we see around and turn away from can become pieces of the game expereience – Debris Become Legible. These can become instcription devices for game play. The way infrastructure becomes part of the game – goals or pieces or moments for power-up. different aspects of urban space become a way for the game to pervade physical space. Annotation rewrites the rules.
Movement = Power-Up. Traditional console gaming doesn’t address physical mocement. Shows a room full o fguys staring at a screen – this iw weird – social play should have another register of interaction and engagement besides sitting still even when you’re in a group of friends.
Pervasive games are ways of experimenting with social contexts and groups of people. Look at different ways in which social beings can be mustered to look at things in a different way.
So What?
The stakes are about a different way of seeing the world and how it works – hopefully in ways of making the world more inhabitable and sustainable. e.g. seeing debris as something that needs to be dealt with.
The “Big Urban Game” Large totems that were carted around the city – semicodes were the goals fo the game – got points for retrieving using mobile phones. Marketed for Qwest – ConQwest – getting people to navigate physical space and encountering poeple not involved in the game, and that interaction is interesting.
Superstar – at UbiComp in Tokyo last year – put stickers all over Tokyo, have other people find and take picture of them, and send them in to the “mothership” – the more pictures you have the more points you get. A cooperative game – you want to link to others and have them take your picture at the same time. One of the goals is to enlist other people and get them involved in the game play.
Pervasive Performance – games that are stage as a form of urban play – Blast Theory group in the UK. Create a mixed-reality experience – one level is online play And then there are real people in the world (the performers) A PDA equipped with a GPS and radio – the online players steer and guide the performers to a goal, through a 3d immersive interface. The physical players (who are actors) gather a group of people who follow them around.
Ludic component – Geocaching – a casual gaming experience. An interesting way of combining people who participate (the cachers) and the people who search. It’s a global thing – use of the whole world as a kind of gameboard.
The Go Game – The object of the play is to do insane activities in physical space – turn the world upside down. Gets the players “out of themselves” in a whimsical experience. It also turns the world upside down, as you see activities in physical space that you woldn’t normally see.
Mobile Phone Games -
Using mobile phone can become an interface not for games on the screen, but playhing games that pervade the physical world. clickr! co-located individuals interact with an experience. You don’t need the latest, greatest, phone to do mobile phone games. Participating in largers social contexts.
Flirt Stampede – uses cell tower location to create a virtual stampede. IC you’re closer you’d see the stampede on your phone screen.
Flirt Lost Cat – a lost cat wandering around the city – depending on where you were you might come across the cat. Using our movement through the city as a way of creating a casual, playful experience.
Twitcher – using your phone as a way of capturing birds that are flying around. Your phone buzzes – you need to capture a picture of the bird before it flies away. If you’re standing next to someone else who has the game, you might both have the opportunity to capture the first picture, if you’re within bluetooth range.
Viewmaster of the future – Using quicktime VR and a sensor for orientation sensing. You look into it and as you pivot around the view changes. You can think about ways that these kinds of experiences allow you to experience a cinematic or game moment as you move about the world.
Human PacMan
Catch Bob – Using gaming as a way of asking research questions – how does collocation inform social interactions? Identifying where other people were and trying to attain a shared goal on tablet PCs as you played the game.
Deeing Yoshi – depending on pervasive network doesn’t work, so try to use the spottiness of the network get used as part of the game mechanics? Food that Yoshi can eat are identified by specific wifi nodes – as you pass them you get the food – so as people played the game over weeks they’d find where the good food was – sometimes the node was doen, etc.
piedimonsters – they have courseware called service design. Interested in nutritional fitness. Idea was to turn pedometers into physical game by combining it with tamegochi. Tying nutrition and physical activity by putting it into a game. What kid wouldn’t want to power up their avatar by walking to school instead of getting a ride?
research.techkwondo.com
