Pervasive Gaming 2

I have looked at this area before (here), and am returning to it because of the direction my work is taking. The Showcases area of the IPerG site demonstrates four examples of work. The first is Epidemic Menace, and example of what they descibe as Crossmedia games. By this they mean individual game that combine a variety of devices, interfaces and media. They are also

potentually acessible anytime and anywhere by a wide range of media devices.

This is an exciting development, although the work they are doing is looking three or four years into the future.

The next 'showcase' is what they term Socially Adaptable Games, which

researches how to develop games that integrate with, and connect to, other social activities of everyday lives.

This involves looking at the social aspects of games. What is particulary striking for me here is the fact that they state that the games are

designed to be partialy virtual and partialy physical.

Then there's the Massively Multiplayer Reaching Out, which is looking at extending online Massive Multiplayer games to be played anywhere, with mobile technology. This is more to do with accessing virtual worlds on the go it seems, rather than the integration of virtual and real.

Next comes the really interesting 'showcase', which is Live Action Role-Playing games (LARP) which use mobile technologies to enhance the experience. Live action RPGs have been around for quite a while, with people being able to live out their Dungeons and Dragons fantasies, dressed up as their character, running around in the woods on a Sunday morning. (I acually know someone who admits to doing this! Should I even admit to knowing someone like that?!) It's the user-orientated experience that's important though, in particular user generated content - that personal experience of a game that can be a very important part of engaging a user as with Spore (which I discussed here. It's also a way for individuals to explore different roles that they wouldn't otherwise have the chance to.

These are really the main areas that I'm looking at for my own work, although there doesn't seem to have been anything new on the IPerG website since I last looked.