Difference between revisions of "Ubiquitous Gameplay"

Revision as of 08:32, 2 October 2011

Gameplay which is possible at most times and in most locations and without requiring significant adjustments to these locations.

Most games requires technological platforms to be played or that preparations are made before gameplay begins, and even so it may not be possible to play them due to other people being disturbed by the gameplay. Games that by design try to avoid these problems and thereby can be played more easily at any place and at any time strive to have Ubiquitous Gameplay.

Examples

Children's Games such as Tag or Hide-and-Seek can be played in most places, and can be said to support Ubiquitous Gameplay as long as one has others to play with and the games are not perceived as disruptive by others. Assassin and various flash mobs (see McGonigal 2005^[1] for examples) are played by adults but otherwise are similar in structure. The traditional parlor game Twenty Questions and the trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon are probably more independent of time and location that the previous examples, only requiring two players and that one can ask and answer questions.

Computer Games can support Ubiquitous Gameplay if the devices are small enough to carry around easily. Among the first such devices were the Game & Watch games and these have been followed by many other types, e.g. the Nintendo GameBoy series, the Nintendo DS series, and the PlayStation Portable series, and most modern mobile phone (e.g. the iPhone) are gaming platforms with large ranges of games available. It should however be noted that not all, and even very few games actually, support Ubiquitous Gameplay since they require constant attention on what is happening on the game screens or do not allow game pauses. The games that do start to support Ubiquitous Gameplay when placed on mobile gaming platforms therefore tend to be Puzzle Games such as Angry Birds and Sokoban or Turn-Based Games such as the Advance Wars series.

Geocaching makes use of GPS devices and the internet to let players find caches all over the world, and this can be done at any time regardless of other players. Location-based social network such as Foursquare^[2] and Gowalla^[3] have gameplay elements and can therefore be seen as having Ubiquitous Gameplay.

Using the pattern

There are two main issues to making it possible to take part of the gameplay of a game without limiting it to specific locations or setups. One concerns how to handle the presence or lack of presences of other players and the other concerns how to handle the need for technological platforms.

While the easiest way to

Single-Player Games

One is to avoid the use of technology and the other is to make use of mobile technology to enable this.

Another trichotomy, based on designers' intent to create games for exploratory, disruptive or commercial purposes, divide these games into ubicomp games, pervasive games, and ubiquitous games^[4]). As this other trichotomy shows, Ubiquitous Gameplay shared and has overlapping characteristics with other classifications of gameplay, e.g. Alternate Reality Gameplay and Pervasive Gameplay, and game designers using one may benefit from consulting all of these.

Extra-Game Input Extra-Game Consequences

Game Pauses

Attention Demanding

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

Narrative Aspects

Consequences

Although not all Ubiquitous Gameplay is intended to be casual, games including the pattern do help meet the requirement of Casual Gameplay since they make lower the thresholds for beginning to play.

Even if Ubiquitous Gameplay can be based around Extra-Game Input and Consequences, it can be more or less impossible to avoid unexpected types of Extra-Game Input and Consequences. This means that games with Ubiquitous Gameplay should be treated as instantiating these patterns in addition to being able to be modified by them.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Casual Gameplay, Extra-Game Consequences, Extra-Game Input, Real World Gameplay Spaces

Can Modulate

Can Be Instantiated By

Can Be Modulated By

Extra-Game Consequences, Extra-Game Input

Possible Closure Effects

Potentially Conflicting With

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

1. ↑ McGonigal, J. (2005). SuperGaming: Ubiquitous Play and Performance for Massively Scaled Community. Modern Drama 48:3 (Fall 2005) 471-491.
2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named foursquare
3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named gowalla
4. ↑ McGonigal, J. (2006). This Might Be a Game: Ubiquitous Play and Performance at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. PhD thesis in performance studies, University of California.

Acknowledgements

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