Day of the Figurines : A Slow Narrative-Driven Game for Mobile Phones Using Text Messaging

Day of the Figurines (DoF) is a text messaging pervasive game for mobile phones that is designed to be slow and interwoven with the patterns of players’ daily lives over a month of play. We describe the design and realisation of DoF showing how it is driven by a strong narrative that is crafted from destinations, times and events and yet supports interactivity through chat, the use of objects, health and dilemmas, all of which can be combined into more complex missions. Feedback from a deployment at Singapore that was played by 141 paying players was positive, with 71% of 24 questionnaire respondents saying they would play again and suggests that this format has potential to broaden the demographic for computer games. Author