Seamful Gameplay
Games where explicit knowledge of the coverage areas of underlying sensing technologies provide gameplay advantages.
Technologies can be used to allow the location of players to be input to the game state. While lack of coverage by these technologies are easily seen as problems for game designs, Seamful Gameplay makes use of the unreliability and dead spots as features that can be exploited by players.
Contents
Examples
Treasure makes use of GPS and WiFi to require players to move in and out of the detection areas of the two technologies are part of a treasure collecting game.
The runners (proffesional players) of the GPS-based game Can You See Me Now? developed tactics where they could use dead spots to temporarily disappear from the game world in order to set up ambushes.
Using the pattern
The prime use of Seamful Gameplay is to make a virtue out of dead spots arising from supporting Player-Location or Player-Player Proximity with technologies that do not work everywhere. This means that the pattern is difficult to apply on games that have Ubiquitous Gameplay.
Diegetic Aspects
Interface Aspects
Narrative Aspects
Consequences
The most typical effect of Seamful Gameplay is to allow Stealth by dropping out of coverage areas. Since the seams of the underlying technologies are typically not obvious to players, developing knowledge about these constitutes a form of Game Mastery and getting this knowledge can lead to Changes in Perception of Real World Phenomena due to Gameplay.
Somewhat paradoxically, even if Seamful Gameplay cannot be added to games with Ubiquitous Gameplay it can make games have Ubiquitous Gameplay when they did not otherwise.
Relations
Can Instantiate
Changes in Perception of Real World Phenomena due to Gameplay, Game Mastery, Ubiquitous Gameplay
with Player-Location Proximity or Player-Player Proximity
Can Modulate
Player-Location Proximity, Player-Location Proximity
Can Be Instantiated By
Can Be Modulated By
Possible Closure Effects
Potentially Conflicting With
History
A pattern based upon the concept of using seamful design in game design, first introduced in the paper Gaming on the Edge: Using Seams in Ubicomp Games[1].
References
- ↑ Chalmers, M., Bell, M., Brown, B., Hall, M., Sherwood, S. & Tennen, P. (2005).Gaming on the Edge: Using Seams in Ubicomp Games. Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology.
Acknowledgements
-
