BOLLOCKS!! Designing pervasive games that play with the social rules of built environments

We propose that pervasive games designed with mechanics that are specifically in opposition with, or disruptive of, social rules of the environment in which they are played, have unique potential to provide interesting, provocative experiences for players. We explore this concept through the design and evaluation of an experimental game prototype, Shhh!, inspired by the juvenile game Bollocks, and implemented on Android mobile devices, which challenges players to make loud noises in libraries. Six participants played the game before engaging in semi-structured interviews, explored through inductive thematic analysis. Results suggest that the game provoked in players a heightened awareness of social rules, as well as a complex social dilemma of whether or not to act. We conclude by presenting a model for designing games that play with the social, as well as physical, rules of the environments in which they are set

Managing Things and Services with Semantics: A Survey

This paper presents a survey on the usage, opportunities and pitfalls of semantic technologies in the Internet of Things. The survey was conducted in the context of a semantic enterprise integration platform. In total we surveyed sixty-one individuals from industry and academia on their views and current usage of IoT technologies in general, and semantic technologies in particular. Our semantic enterprise integration platform aims for interoperability at a service level, as well as at a protocol level. Therefore, also questions regarding the use of application layer protocols, network layer protocols and management protocols were integrated into the survey. The survey suggests that there is still a lot of heterogeneity in IoT technologies, but first indications of the use of standardized protocols exist. Semantic technologies are being recognized as of potential use, mainly in the management of things and services. Nonetheless, the participants still see many obstacles which hinder the widespread use of semantic technologies: Firstly, a lack of training as traditional embedded programmers are not well aware of semantic technologies. Secondly, a lack of standardization in ontologies, which would enable interoperability and thirdly, a lack of good tooling support

Prototyping Pervasive Games: A New Dimension of Complexity

Welcome to the second volume of the reader on Pervasive Gaming Research! With this volume we focus mainly on actual implementations and prototypes of Pervasive Games. The foundations, both in technical and conceptual terms, were laid in the fi rst volume. Now, we apply these foundations to real Pervasive Games and explore the issues related to actually realizing such Pervasive Games. Clearly, the combination of virtual, physical, and social aspects in Pervasive Gaming contributes to a new complexity in game design, since games are no longer confi ned to the narrowness of a computer screen, but integrate with our real environments that consist of many things beyond our control

Prototyping Pervasive Games: A New Dimension of Complexity

Welcome to the second volume of the reader on Pervasive Gaming Research! With this volume we focus mainly on actual implementations and prototypes of Pervasive Games. The foundations, both in technical and conceptual terms, were laid in the fi rst volume. Now, we apply these foundations to real Pervasive Games and explore the issues related to actually realizing such Pervasive Games. Clearly, the combination of virtual, physical, and social aspects in Pervasive Gaming contributes to a new complexity in game design, since games are no longer confi ned to the narrowness of a computer screen, but integrate with our real environments that consist of many things beyond our control

Novel Gaming Applications for Smart Home Environments

Pervasive Gaming Applications; User Interfaces; Smart Home Environments; Novel Gaming Applications; Mixed Reality; Social and Physical Entertainment Systems; Augmented Reality Games; Design Aspects; Pervasive Multiplayer Game; Mapping; Exertion Interfaces; REXplorer; Pervasive Games; Socially Adaptable Game

Classifying Pervasive Games: On Pervasive Computing and Mixed Reality

Pervasive Games have become popular in recent years. Their ambitious goal is to bring the computer into the world in order to augment existing games or to even come up with hitherto impossible or unthought-of forms of entertainment. This paper reflects on the various approaches to define what Pervasive Games consist of, how they relate to playing and games, and how different terms and views can be integrated. The paper contributes a unifying and integrating classification of the respective terms that relates different states of reality to the relevant dimensions and game elements

Towards the Emergence of a New Application Domain

This book gives an introduction and overview of the field of Pervasive Gaming, an emerging genre in which traditional, real-world games are augmented with computing functionality, or, depending on the perspective, purely virtual computer entertainment is brought back to the real world. We try to both inform about the developments and influential works in the fi eld of Pervasive Games, and also help laying the foundation for shaping the future of this application domain. Consequently, we focus on concepts and theoretical works that help understanding and sharpening the rationale behind the field (the "what") as well as on technological means of actually realizing working prototypes of Pervasive Games (the "how"). Both perspectives have their right and need to go hand in hand. The first four of the twelve chapters contributed by leading experts in the fi eld address the theoretical foundations. The individual authors' views sometimes complement each other, sometimes they express similar ideas and concepts, and sometimes they even contradict each other severely. Since we are currently far from having established a common ground about what this emerging genre clearly defi nes and separates from related fields, we suggest treating the individual chapters with equal respect and being prepared to contribute to the fi eld with one's own thoughts and ideas that might help further shape and clarify the important issues of Pervasive Games

Classifying Pervasive Games: On Pervasive Computing and Mixed Reality

Pervasive Games have become popular in recent years. Their ambitious goal is to bring the computer into the world in order to augment existing games or to even come up with hitherto impossible or unthought-of forms of entertainment. This paper reflects on the various approaches to define what Pervasive Games consist of, how they relate to playing and games, and how different terms and views can be integrated. The paper contributes a unifying and integrating classification of the respective terms that relates different states of reality to the relevant dimensions and game elements

Enterprise Integration of Smart Objects using Semantic Service Descriptions

Integrating physical objects (smart objects) and enterprise IT systems is still a labor intensive, mainly manual task done by domain experts. On one hand, enterprise IT backend systems are based on service oriented architectures (SOA) and driven by business rule engines or business process execution engines. Smart objects on the other hand are often programmed at very low levels. In this paper we describe an approach that makes the integration of smart objects with such backends systems easier. We introduce semantic endpoint descriptions based on Linked USDL. Furthermore, we show how different communication patterns can be integrated into these endpoint descriptions. The strength of our endpoint descriptions is that they can be used to automatically create REST or SOAP endpoints for enterprise systems, even if which they are not able to talk to the smart objects directly. We evaluate our proposed solution with CoAP, UDP and 6LoWPAN, as we anticipate the industry converge towards these standards. Nonetheless, our approach also allows easy integration with backend systems, even if no standardized protocol is used