The map as playground: Location-based games as cartographical practices

Abstract

This article examines how maps in location-based mobile games are used as surfaces on which players can inscribe their whereabouts and other local information while being on the move. Using different examples of location-based games (LBGs) to which the map is central, our main argument is that such cartographical LBGs foreground the fluidity of mapping and emphasize the performative aspects of playing with maps. As such, we wish to move away from a conception of maps as representational texts and will show that it is far more productive to approach such cartographical games as processual and navigational practices. Instead of conceiving maps in such games as ‘mimetic interfaces’ (Juul, 2009), they should therefore be approached as what we will call navigational interfaces. To understand them as such, we will combine perspectives from game studies with non-representational understandings of maps as technological and spatial practices as developed in human geography and science and technology studies. By doing so, we wish to instigate a productive interdisciplinary debate about the relation between play and mapping as to deepen our understanding of LBGs as cultural cartographical practices.

Seasons change, so do we

“…Therefore, dynamic, performative and playful encounters with geographic space are the result of heterogeneous temporalities that challenge the immutability of the sign plate. With maps becoming 'navigational interfaces' (Lammes, 2011: 1), alternative temporalities enter cartographic interfaces and representations become more mutable, as cartographic indexicality is not subordinated to an absolute time frame but becomes just another layer of experience.…”

Maps as foams and the rheology of digital spatial media

“…Bruno Latour (1990: 37) famously coined the term 'immutable mobile' to describe how knowledge (geographic and otherwise) moves through the world using transferable yet fixed ways of understanding or acting -see Latour (1990). Sybille Lammes (2011) draws on this when analysing the mutability of maps used in online gaming contexts. Lammes (2011) describes how due to the mobility of players and the mutability of the 'image of the map' (i.e.…”

“…Sybille Lammes (2011) draws on this when analysing the mutability of maps used in online gaming contexts. Lammes (2011) describes how due to the mobility of players and the mutability of the 'image of the map' (i.e. the graphic interface) the 'playing field' has become transformable, rather than static as with conventional board games.…”

Mapping the Beach Beneath the Street: Digital Cartography for the Playable City

“…Examples of this include Runtastic, which includes a "Story Running" activity 10 , where users can listen to a diverse range of stories intended to enhance the running experience; and Zombies Run 11 , which adds a narrative into 'missions', enhancing the activity with game like adversaries such as zombies 'chasing' the player, or the achievement of in-game quests that are required to 'build your base' and 'defend your community'. Finally other applications, such as Swarm (formerly Foursquare), may be called 'quasi-games' because they do not have very well established rules so may be considered as occupying a 'middle-ground' somewhere between social networking tools and games (Lammes, 2011). Whilst such quasi-games exhibit play-like elements, their status as games is not universally accepted (Deterding et al 2011) and the majority of these utilise the same navigational aesthetic.…”