Understanding Pervasive Games through Gameplay Design Patterns

The 2007 study "Understanding Pervasive Games through Gameplay Design Patterns" examines how pervasive games, those that extend play into everyday physical and social spaces, can be characterized and organized through a shared vocabulary of design patterns. Rather than classifying games by genre, the authors take a bottom-up approach, analyzing 120 pervasive game examples against 75 gameplay design patterns, 53 of which were newly developed for pervasive contexts and 24 of which were carried over from an earlier study of mobile games. Patterns were iteratively scanned, refined, and grouped using a custom clustering program, with cluster names treated as hypotheses about each group's core character.

The analysis produced a hierarchy of clusters that the authors present as a usable map of the pervasive game design space. The most distinct grouping, GPS Games, is separated from the rest chiefly by its absence of social-interaction patterns, while clusters labeled LARP ARGs and Normal Games reflect, respectively, blurred boundaries between play and presentation and games whose play is conspicuously obvious to participants. Stopping criteria for the iterative process required stable pattern and game sets, the absence of further re-analysis needs, and cluster names that were interpretable rather than arbitrary.

A central conclusion is that pervasive games are better understood as a complex property that can attach to many genres than as a genre in themselves. The authors also acknowledge limits to the analysis: it is not fully objective, and it is likely biased toward games with more thoroughly documented patterns, which may overrepresent well-publicized examples. The surrounding literature, spanning conference and journal work from roughly 1981 to 2007, covers augmented reality, tabletop and hybrid games, and location-based mobile play.