Jaakko Stenros

Quickly emerging from the fast-paced growth of mobile communications and wireless technologies, pervasive games take gaming away from the computer screen and back to the three-dimensional world. Now games can be designed to be played in public spaces like shopping malls, conferences, museums and other non-traditional game venues. Game designers need to understand how to use the world as a gamespace-and both the challenges and advantages of doing so. This book shows how to change the face of play-who plays, when and where they play and what that play means to all involved. The authors explore aspects of pervasive games that concern game designers: what makes these games compelling, what makes them possible today and how they are made. For game researchers, it provides a solid theoretical, philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the genre. Pervasive Games covers everything from theory and design to history and marketing.

Would you like to spend a weekend in the world of Harry Potter?This book documents College of Wizardry, a larp where participants live and study for three days in the Czocha College of Witchcraft and Wizardry. What is it like to study at a magic school? How is spellcasting best taught today? How is it possible to design, simulate, and enact an enchanted world that feel reals through co-creation and trust?In this book, two dozen player accounts and a cornucopia of images open up the experiences from the first three runs of the larp. Special sections are devoted to addressing player experience, analysis of larp design, and the practice of teaching magic.

Quickly emerging from the fast-paced growth of mobile communications and wireless technologies, pervasive games take gaming away from the computer screen and back to the three-dimensional world. Now games can be designed to be played in public spaces like shopping malls, conferences, museums and other non-traditional game venues. Game designers need to understand how to use the world as a gamespace-and both the challenges and advantages of doing so. This book shows how to change the face of play-who plays, when and where they play and what that play means to all involved. The authors explore aspects of pervasive games that concern game designers: what makes these games compelling, what makes them possible today and how they are made. For game researchers, it provides a solid theoretical, philosophical and aesthetic understanding of the genre. Pervasive Games covers everything from theory and design to history and marketing.