Atomic actions -- molecular experience: theory of pervasive gaming

The attempt of this paper is to describe and analyze the formalisms of pervasive games and pervasive gaming (PG). As the title indicates, PG consists of atomic entities that nevertheless merge into molecular structure exhibiting emergent features during the actual gameplay. The paper introduces four axes of PG (mobility, distribution, persistence, and transmediality). Further, it describes and analyses three key units of PG (rules, entities, and mechanics) as well as discusses the role of space in PG by differentiating between tangible space, information embedded space, and accessibility space. The paper is generally concerned with classifying the indispensable components of pervasive games and, in addition, it lists the invariant features of pervasive gameplay meaning the epistemology that is tied to this new kind of gaming situated on the borderline between corporeal and immaterial space. Of particular interest are game rules in pervasive gaming since they seem to touch upon both th...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2005
• Where: CIE
• Authors: Bo Kampmann Walther
• Keywords: Applied Computing, CIE 2005, Pervasive Games, Pervasive Gaming, Space