Bridging the Physical and Digital in Pervasive Gaming

In Bridging the Physical and Digital in Pervasive Gaming, Benford, Margerkurth and Ljungstrand talk (once again) about the new challenges given to pervasive gaming. Namely:

• Dealing with uncertainty Uncertainties associated with sensing and wireless communication. Both are constrainted by limited coverage, especially in congested urban areas, so that players may often be unable to obtain fix on their position or communicate with others.
• Hybrid architectures. Reconciling client-server and peer-to-peer architecture. Whereas client-server architectures enable players to share a consistent game experience, peer-to-peer support highly localized and ad-hoc game play during encounters on the streets.
• Hefting domains Designs requires careful consideration of which elements to represent virtually, physically, or as a blend of both
• Configuration A pervasive game may need to be configured to work at many different locations
• Orchestration Real time management of live game from behind the scenes

In this article, they also mention the various forms of pervasive games (mapping classic computer games onto real-world setting, focus on social interaction, touring artistic games, educational games). They mention the three core technologies that pervasive games are built upon (displays, wireless communication, sensing technologies). It is actually the blend of technoloies combined with the location-based and often public nature of game play, gives pervasive games their distinctive identity.