Difference between revisions of "Ubiquitous Gameplay"

Revision as of 12:41, 4 October 2011

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

Most games require technological platforms to be played or that preparations are made before gameplay begins, but 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 or physical gameplay elements. A third concern which often overlaps with both of the two other concerns is the question of when one can play.

While the easiest way to avoid the issue of having several players able to play together is of course to make games into Single-Player Games. When this is not a possibility, Asynchronous Games can let players be able to do gameplay actions when others are not active. This however can create Downtime for players if they have to wait for other players, and if this is perceived as a problem the ubiquitousness can be sacrificed somewhat through making the games be Tick-Based ones.

Regarding the dependency on technology or physical game elements, one strategy is to avoid the use of these and the other is to make use of as few elements as possible or alternatively use mobile technology. That games do not need to rely on gameplay elements or make use things already in the environment can be seen through examples such as Assassin, Hide-and-Seek, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Tag, and Twenty Questions. Of course, a deck of cards or some dice are rather easy bring anywhere, so Dice Games, e.g. Yahtzee or Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age, and Card Games, e.g. Poker, Contract Bridge or Werewolf, can be seen as week examples of Ubiquitous Gameplay. The decisions of what mobile technology to use is more of a hardware design issue rather than a gameplay design issue, but depending on what connectivity and input functionality they provide this can create boundary conditions on what type of gameplay is possible.

Another division, based on designers' intent to create games for exploratory, disruptive, or commercial purposes, divides games with Ubiquitous Gameplay into ubicomp games, pervasive games, and ubiquitous games^[4]). As this 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.

Given that Ubiquitous Gameplay is intended to let games be played in most contexts, they offer natural possibilities to make use of both Extra-Game Input and Extra-Game Consequences.

Ubiquitous Gameplay is difficult to combine with Attention Demanding since this makes it more difficult to players to chosen when to play or not. In fact, allowing Game Pauses or Drop-In/Drop-Out gameplay are two opposite ways of letting players play whenever they wish and thereby solving the concern about when one can play.

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, and when this makes the gameplay merge with other activities the pattern creates Pervasive Gameplay. When this makes players play games in public environments, it also makes it likely that the gameplay has Spectators, although these may or may not be aware of that a game is being played.

Relations

Can Instantiate

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

Can Modulate

Can Be Instantiated By

Asynchronous Games, Drop-In/Drop-Out, Game Pauses, Single-Player Games

Can Be Modulated By

Extra-Game Consequences, Extra-Game Input

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

Attention Demanding

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. ↑ Wikipedia entry for Foursquare.
3. ↑ Wikipedia entry for 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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