Location-based challenges for playful neighbourhood exploration

Abstract

Location-based activities can challenge citizens to explore their neighbourhood in new playful ways. This paper presents a classification of such playful activities based on the literature and experience gained (1) in co-creation sessions and (2) gameplay for neighbourhood exploration with citizens in the Hague. The location-based game designed for this purpose encouraged neighbourhood exploration and social interaction that went beyond the everyday normal. Results showed that citizens are specifically interested in activities that allow them to discover new information about, and places in, their neighbourhood when these are related to their own life. The results of this paper provide new knowledge on game design to inform designers on which type of interactions and activities foster neighbourhood exploration and social interaction.

Software Architecture for Location-Based Games Designed for Social Interaction in Public Space

“…As last stage, further workshops were done with children/teenagers (10-16 age group) to 1) jointly create content for the game that not only is appropriate but also appeals to this target group, and 2) validate the game in its capacity to provide opportunities that promote meaningful social interaction [5]. The game has shown to be successful at creating opportunities for social interaction (within a group of friends, with strangers, and with the environment) through co-located challenges of different types and difficulties, which, in turn, provides a game play experience that children enjoy and that is positive to them (i.e., bears meaning to them) [5,18]. For this reason, this game is selected as a proof of concept for this architecture.…”

“…Additional requirements were elicited from children during workshops designed to this purpose [17,19]. The next stage explored the functionality that needs to be included in a design and implementation for the promotion of social interaction [18,20]. The proposed software architecture (Fig.…”

“…Digital LBGs are an established method to making citizens come together and turn their own environment into a playful experience [12][13][14][15][16]. The requirements for such LBGs are known [5,[17][18][19], and these mandate a specific software architecture and architectural components to be implemented. Yet, there is a lack of guidance on how to turn such requirements into a technological artifact (the LBG).…”

“…To understand which architectural components must be implemented, this paper first analyses several existing LBGs. It identifies commonalities across these games and provides 1) a list of key components for LBGs for social interaction in public space, 2) a software architecture containing such key components, and 3) a proof of concept illustrating how this software architecture is instantiated in the LBG "Secrets of the South", a game that has shown to provide opportunities for players to come together and interact in their neighbourhood [5,18,20]. This paper complements prior research of the authors on meaningful social interaction through location-based games [3,5,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] by specifically focusing on requirements for a systems' architecture for LBGs for social interaction.…”

Requirements for Location-Based Games for Social Interaction

“…This holds true in particular for adolescents who are in a stage in life in which they are working on their own self-definition, their own identity [24]. Secondly, the explicit goal to foster social interaction in public space mandates consideration of factors that directly relate to location-based social interaction that do not necessarily hold for game design in general [25][26][27]. These challenges have to be addressed in a novel game requirements elicitation and analysis methodology for this specific type of game.…”