Off The Board A Brief Definition and History of

Pervasive Games

Eddie Duggan <e.duggan@ucs.ac.uk>

BGS2015 Wednesday 15th to Saturday 18th April International Society for Board Game Studies

Out of the Ordinary

• Johan Huizinga famously described

play as being “outside ordinary life”, as something that “proceeds within its own boundaries of time and space” (Huizinga 1949, p. 13).

• This paper will discuss so-called “pervasive games”, which blur the boundaries between ordinary life and the ritualistic game-space inside the magic circle.

The Magic Circle

• Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman use the term “magic circle” to describe the physical and temporal boundaries within which play occurs.

• While Salen and Zimmerman acknowledge the distinction between “playing” and “not playing” can be “fuzzy and permeable”, citing the example of a child “idly kneading” the head of a doll whilst watching television, their account doesn’t seem to really fully accom- odate the peculiarity of pervasive games.

• Zimmerman revisited the magic circle in 2012 as a rejoinder to the jerks (“earnest graduate students” and eminent scholars) who would tilt at windmills, and to clarify the position of Rules of Play.

Pervasive Games

• Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola define pervasive games as both a “sub-category of games” and “an expansion of what games are”.

• They discuss some of the key characteristics of pervasive games and group them into two categories, which they call “established genres” and “emerging genres”.

“Established genres”

• Stenros and Montola’s “established genres” category consists of existing game types that are likely to be well-known: 1. Treasure Hunts 2. Assassination Games 3. Pervasive LARPs (live action role-play games) 4. ARGs (alternate reality games).

1. Treasure Hunts

• Treasure Hunt games probably derive from “letterboxing”, an English pastime dating from the mid-C19th when Dartmoor guide James Perrott left a jar on the moor with a calling card inside, inviting finders to leave their own card.

• After it was noted in William Crossing’s Guide to Dartmoor (1909), hikers began to leave addressed letters and cards in the “letterbox” and the next finder would take the deposited item and post it.

“Letterboxing”

• A system of rubber stamps and log-books evolved, providing finders with a means of recording their encounters.

• By the mid-1970s there were about a dozen “letter boxes” on Dartmoor; now there are thousands.

A C20th “letter-box” structure built at the site of James Perrott’s jar, Cranmere Pool, Dartmoor.

Geo-caching

• “Geo-caching” is a form of treasure hunt that has evolved from “Letterboxing”. Players use GPS-enabled devices to locate boxes containing trinkets and log-books.

• Like letterboxing, geo-caching isn’t really a game, although points can be accrued, which players log on a global database. <Video: “What is Geocaching?” [1.52]>

Vibiscum II : Château de la Tour-de-Peilz

• There are caches all over the world, including some in Vevey.

• There is even one here at the Swiss Museum of Games!

The Geocache website shows a small cache is located at the Swiss Museum of Games. : http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2DYPB_vibiscum-ii-chateau-de-la-tour-de-peilz

2. Assassination games

• Assassination games probably derive from the 1965 Italian film, La Decima Vittima (The Tenth Victim), based on a 1953 science-fiction short story by Robert Sheckley.

• When the film was released in North America, games of Killer were reportedly played on University campuses in its wake.

Blurring the boundaries

• In the game, players use toy guns and other props to assassinate their assigned victim and, as the game takes place without the usual spatial or temporal boundaries it breaks through, or at least blurs, the clear delineation of the magic circle.

• Because a killer may lurk near a victim’s home, telephone the victim’s friends or workplace in order to establish his whereabouts, there is a considerable overlap of “the real world” and “the game world”.

Where, when, who … ?

• The boundaries of the magic circle are distorted by a game that doesn’t take place at a specific time, in a particular location with specific players.

• For players, excitement is heightened by simultaneous-ly inhabiting two worlds: players are both inside and outside the game world at the same time.

• The game is a shared secret. • It is still popular on

university campuses UCS Assassins. UCS Computer Games Design notice board, UCS Ipswich. March 2015

3. Pervasive LARPs

• Live-action role-play games (LARPs) are a form of improvised performance which, according to Stenros and Montola, evolved from table-top RPGs in the early 1980s.

• Players personify or embody table-top characters by donning costume and taking the game off the board and into the real world. There are overlaps with improvised theatre.

Still from Monster Camp (2007) an award-winning LARP documentary

Game for a LARP: Ikea Heights

• LARP genres include historical and horror as well as fantasy and science fiction <LARP wikipedia entry>.

• One amusing example of the “overlap” between game space and real world can be seen in Ikea Heights, an episodic performance piece or mini soap opera, performed and filmed in a branch of Ikea in Burbank, California, without Ikea’s knowledge or permission, at least in early episodes.

The series (seven episodes) can be found at <https://vimeo.com/channels/ikeaheights >

When is a LARP not a LARP?

• In game-play terms, LARPs are primarily structured around what Caillois would call mimicry; although Ikea Heights is also an example of guerrilla film making.

• Players of assassination games such as Killer could also be said to be LARPing on the strength of their role-playing performances.

Not LARPing, but too good to omit

4. Alternate Reality Games

• Alternate-reality games are collaborative rather than competitive; groups of players work together to solve puzzles or unravel mysteries.

• Well-known examples have been used to promote films, television programmes, mobile phones and computer games.

“The Beast”

• A well-known example of an ARG is a game devised by a small team working in the Microsoft Game Group as part of the marketing campaign for the 2001 Steven Speilberg film, A.I.

• The game came to be known as “The Beast”.

“Senient Machine Therapist”

• The game was designed to provide clues across a variety of media (websites, film posters, emails, etc) encouraging players to collaborate in solving a puzzle that presented itself as something that was not a game.

• Players found “rabbit holes” as entry points to the game. One example of such an entry-point is what Jane McGonigal has described as “a provocative credit”: “Jeanine Salla, Sentient Machine Therapist”.

Down the rabbit hole…

• Anyone sharp-eyed enough to spot the credit, and inquisitive enough to follow it up, found planted information, including biographical and contact details, and links to a friend’s site with a story of a mysterious death, all set in the future.

• Thousands of users collaborated in solving puzzles and interacting with the game.

“Emerging Genres”

• Stenros and Montola identify what they call “emerging genres” of pervasive game:

1. Smart Street Sports 2. Playful Public Performances 3. Urban Adventure Games 4. Reality Games • The remaining slides will briefly review each

of the above, in reverse order…

4. Reality Games

• Reality games tend toward paideia rather than ludus – a form of “play” rather than a type of game – something to intrigue or engage bystanders or non-players.

The Ravenna Mario Cubes

• Inspired by instructions on a website for reclaiming public space, a group of schoolgirls in Ravenna, Ohio, “installed” some Mario Cubes in April 2006.

• Authorities unfamiliar with Mario games mistook the cubes for a potential terrorist threat.

“How to make your own totally sweet Mario Question Blocks and put them up around town because it’s really awesome” http://web.archive.org/web/20050609234453/http://www.qwantz.com/posterchild/

3. Urban Adventure Games

• Urban Adventure games have been described as the descendants of interactive fiction, akin to “hypertexts manoeuvred in physical space”.

• Montola et al discuss REXplorer, an interactive tourist guide to Regensburg, devised for tourists aged 16-30.

• Visitors took hand-held mobile devices from the tourist office and used them complete tasks and solve puzzles. Data was saved to a blog for users to remember their visit.

Rexplorer promotional video [4.35]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf7m97tF3Ls

2. Playful Public Performances

• Akin to something from the television series It’s a Knockout (Jeux sans Frontieres).

• A well-known example is Big Urban Game, designed to raise awareness of the urban environ- ment in the twin cities of St Paul and Minneapolis.

Image links to video of Katie Salen discussing BUG [10.29]: http://www.tele-task.de/archive/video/ipod/8168/

Big Urban Game

• The game took the form of race between three teams over five days.

• Each team moved a giant game piece through check-points on a designated route.

• Each team’s daily route was voted for by online participants.

• The aim was to get the piece to the final check point, on the bridge joining the two cities, in the shortest amount of time. Big Urban Game, Red piece, Day 2.

Photo: Matthew Pahs

1. Smart Street Sports

• The “smart” aspect is provided by technology. The form tends to consist of re-creations of computer games in physical space, or technologically enhanced “tag”-style games.

• The arcade game Pac-Man – essentially a chase game in which the player runs away from or pursues four ghosts – has inspired several recreations in the form of smart street sports.

Pac-Manhattan

• Set in the grid-like streets of Manhattan, Pac-Manhattan was created as a post-graduate project by students at New York University in 2004.

• The game involves a PacMan player in the street, along with three ghost characters.

• Each player is in constant telephone communication with a controller in a control room who updates their player’s position on the map.

Pac-Manhattan: play test game map. http://web.archive.org/web/20141011113813/http://www.pacmanhattan.com/about.php]

Come Out and Play

• The game was played again in Brooklyn in July 2014, using the same technology as 2004, as part of the annual Come Out and Play festival.

• The festival promotes various types of games and play: Street games, pervasive games, new urban games, big

games, locative games, location-aware games, location-based games, gps games, flash mob games, augmented reality games, scavenger hunts, art-sports, and even LARPs are all among the diverse kinds of games that can be played at the annual Come Out & Play Festival http://www.comeoutandplay.org/press_factsheet.php

Squaring the circle with a jerk

• It is evident that games and play are in rude health, with innovative developments bringing new forms to increasingly larger groups of participants.

• The term “jerk”, as used in physics to refer to a change in acceleration over time, may well be used, pace Zimmerman 2012, to describe the effect that the various types of pervasive game reviewed here are having on game culture in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first century.

References Crossing, W. (1914) Guide to Dartmoor: a topographical description of the forest and

commons … With maps, etc. Third edition. Plymouth. Western Morning News Co. Huizinga, J. (1949) Homo Ludens: A Study of the play element in culture. London.

Routledge & Kegan Paul. Montola, M., Stenros, J. and Waern, A. (2009) Pervasive Games: Theory and Design.

London. Morgan Kaufmann. Posterchild (2006) “How to make your own totally sweet Mario Question Blocks and

put them up around town because it’s really awesome”. [Webpage] Available online: http://web.archive.org/web/20050609234453/http://www.qwantz.com/posterchild/

Salen, K., and Zimmerman, E. (2004) “The Magic Circle” in, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. London. MIT Press. pp. 93-99.

Sheckley, R. (2012) “The Seventh Victim” in, Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley. New York. New York Review of Books. pp. 14-29.

Zimmerman, E. (2012) “Jerked Around by the Magic Circle: Clearing the Air Ten Years Later” Gamasutra. [Webpage] Available online: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6696/jerked_around_by_the_magic_circle_.php