The first, and hopefully not last, blog post is already just some rambling mess. I wrote it very, very spontaneously and basically just let out what I had on my mind. I make unfounded claims, sure, but the whole thing is just an idea. Jan was so kind to provide me with some feedback already (I marked it in red).

Some parts might be a little weird (some might even say embarrassing, but I usually am not embarrassed when giving away details of my geeky childhood. 🙂 ), so be prepared for a laugh or two.

I’d appreciate feedback, just leave it in a comment.

Gero’s ideas for the Aixplorer-Game

(proposal draft?)

The way I see it, a game always pulls the player into some sort of virtual world, be it something actually imagined as a world (a fantasy world, or a science fiction world) or something like the abstract “zone” of chess moves, where only those weird figures matter.
There is, however, something that, to me, seems to differ between the way I played games as a child and now, even though I like playing a lot (in fact a lot more than most other things to do):
For children, the real world and the virtual one actually merge. If you play catch or hide & go seek outside with friends, even if you imagine being a police officer and your buddies are bad guys, you’re “there”. In some sort that even worked for concrete settings (I, for example, pretended to be in “Star Wars” a lot…): The see-saw was the Millennium Falcon etc. Of course adults, at first, are often chuckling at those notations. As a grown-up you surely would not make those make-believe kind of plays, would you? My first claim is that this is not true, because whether you map it onto a real physical place or not, immersing yourself into a board game is, objectively seen, the same process.
In fact, many of today’s computer games seem to build on this human desire. They present you a virtual world, often times a direct copy of some known media franchise (KOTOR = “Knights of the old Republic”, a Star Wars RPG…), using the technical possibilities of computers to create it, in some way next to, the real world. The fact that those games have become popular even among adults over the recent years indicate that even as grown ups we still have the desire to “flee” from reality into these artificial worlds. {Jan: like in Movies!}
But why do we need worlds next to instead of right within the real world?
Well, there might be several reasons for this. Social awkwardness put aside (seeing kids running after each other shouting “pew! pew!” is acceptable, but if those were adults?) I assume that time and organizational effort are the biggest issues here. As an adult you have less spare time, obviously. More-so, it is less likely that your friends have time on their hands at the exact time you desire to play a game, so you need to put additional effort into planning the thing. Formal organization, however, might simply demolish the desire to play; at least it makes ad-hoc games impossible.
There are notable exceptions to this: Live-action role players, for example, put an enormous amount of preparation into their hobby, which is basically nothing more complex of pretending to be a fictional character (something every child has probably done). Judging from the number of people who played these games as children and not as adults anymore, it seems that’s not the standard, however.
Using a computer to jump into a well prepared virtual world can be a lot easier, so perhaps this is why people prefer that to playing more traditional games. Even the usually collaborative or competitive nature (which requires other players) of many games is addressed now that every computer is typically interconnected via the internet. It has become easy to find other players.
So everything is well then, right? (Putting concerns about deteriorating imagination caused by the consumption of pre-fabricated fantasy worlds instead of using your own mind aside)
I think not, because there are still many people who play traditional games. When interviewed for the why, they usually respond that meeting their friends in real life is superior to meeting only online. Social issues meeting strangers online to play with also play a role. It appears that there is something within playing with your peers that can’t be entirely replaced by these days’ computer games. {Jan: bandwidth: real vs virtual; check the paper: “Beyond being there”}
The traditional games they do play then, however, very often again produce a world next to the real one. It either manifests on the board or it is even the whole purpose of the game (pen & paper roleplaying). Only in the rarest cases (LARP, see above) is it mapped directly on the real world.

My claim is that now that we have location aware mobile and small scale computers, it will be possible to “bring back the playing to the street”. {Jan: check book: “Burning Man”} The virtual worlds in which we like so much to divulge ourselves can now be made accessible from literally everywhere. Don’t use the computer to create a virtual world for which you have to blend out the existing one, but have it help you enhance your imagination back to the degree you possessed as a child. {Jan: “AR argument”}
Make it support you in finding the time to play using the same ways non-location aware games these days do: Buddy lists, finding ad-hoc players, and inviting your friends. Save time to explicitly meet somewhere to then virtually leave again into another world, but bring that other world to where you are. {Jan: see also Facebook, Farmville, foursquare}

There have been projects creating games like this. The idea of a location aware game is not new at all. Geocaching, for example, tackles the issue, but it actually comes from the other direction. It’s more like a hiking experience turned into a location-aware game (a treasure hunt) than a traditional game turned location-aware. So far, I am unaware of any projects that have explicitly pondered the question of how to have computers enhance playing games “right on top of reality” the way kids do.

Of course that is an open question. The way I imagine these enhancements brought by computers might not do the trick. It is not guaranteed that help with organizing and improving imagination result in the same degree of immersion that a kid on the playground has, but I believe it’s worth trying out.

{Jan, general comments, bullet points: Flashmobs, Occupy WS, “The Game” movie, “24”, homo ludens}