Gaming on the Edge: Using Seams in Pervasive Games

Outdoor multi-player games are an increasingly popular application area for pervasive computing, supporting experimentation both with new technologies and new user experiences. This paper presents a set of experiments with an outdoor pervasive game that exploits the gaps or seams that exist in complex computer systems. The Bill game is designed so that players move in and out of areas of wireless network coverage, taking advantage of the connectivity within a wireless 'hotspot' and also of the lack of connectivity outside it. We draw lessons for how such games can successfully encourage social interaction between players, discuss the interaction between the game and the local environment, and describe our approach to recording and 'replaying' such games. More broadly, this paper discusses how the notion of seamful design can be a source of design ideas for such games.