Backseat playgrounds: Pervasive storytelling in vast location based games

Abstract

We have implemented a conceptual software framework and a story-based game that facilitates generation of rich and vivid narratives in vast geographical areas. An important design challenge in the emergent research area of pervasive gaming is to provide believable environments where game content is matched to the landscape in an evocative and persuasive way. More specificly, our game is designed to generate such an environment tailored to a journey as experienced from the backseat of a car. Therefore, it continuously references common geographical objects, such as houses, forests and churches, in the vicinity within the story; it provides a sequential narrative that fit with the drive; it works over vast areas, and it is possible to interact with the game while looking out of the windows. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2006.