Enabling emergent behaviour in location based games

Abstract

In general location based games have failed to achieve wide scale adoption and the only location based service that can truly claim such adoption is Geocaching. Arguably this is due to fact that the majority of these games draw their inspiration from video games rather than the way users engage with public spaces such as in Geocaching. The game presented in this paper utilises the motivations demonstrated amongst geocachers, such as exploration and discovery, alongside competitive game play in an attempt to enable a longitudinal study of such a gaming community. In this paper we present the design rational and results of initial users beta testing which indicate that user creativity could well be the key to unlocking the potential of location based games. © 2010 ACM.