Pervasive Games

Pervasive games, as the name would suggest, is a game involving many people and/or in a wide predetermined area or zone. Games such as treasure hunt or assassinations games played by multiple people given tasks to undertake against or with other people.

Jaakko Stenros & Markus Montola define pervasive games as both a "sub-category of games" and "an expansion of what games are"

There are 4 main established genres of pervasive games

• Treasure Hunts
• Assassination Games
• Pervasive LARPs
• ARGs

 Treasure hunting is fairly self explanatory but it can become more complete when you do it on a wider scale such as Geocashing. This site hide treasures all over the world which its paying subscribers have to go find using a GPS device. Think of it like a Easter egg hunt but the backyard is the world. another variation of this is the scavenger hunt where there will be teams and the team with the most X or Y will win.

Assassination games originated from films such as "La decima Vittima". The objective is that a group of people will try to assassinate each other (not really kill eachother, just pretend) by finding and using a imaginary weapon to kill them. There are usually rules such as safe ground area's and not actually physical hard can be done.

There is a small video HERE demonstrating what a game might be like. Funny fact about this is that I used to work with the narrator/director Lucy when I was younger prior to her going to leeds and studying film, I didn't recognizance the voice till I saw her name in the credits and went back to check. Very strange but funny.

LARP's require the players to perform or act when they do something. Such as a killer in a assassination game provided their is only 1 killed and everyone knew who they were but not when he would strick. Unlike the above assassination game where thier are multiple people trying to kill eachother at the same time.

ARG's are Alternative Reality Games. They are usually collaborative games, using groups or even whole community's to solve puzzles or unravel mysteries. These games have been used in mass media markets to help advertise products in the passed.


My Notes

When we played the QR code game at the university I found the whole process very interesting because it was a interesting and refreshing change for a game type. When we say "game" we usually automatically think of the 3 most command types :- cards, board and digital. Even thought I cannot see myself running from city to city looking for treasures or looking to stab someone in the back to with a wooden spoon I could definitely see myself organizing something involving it and watching the drama/game unfold in front of my eyes.

Bring back community games like these is a great way to reconnect people again as we have become distant from one enough as entertainment is so easy to get from your desk or sofa. Where as before all of that, our only really source of entertainment was stories around the campfire, hide and seek and other communal gathering events.