Name Iris Soute
Advisors Panos Markopoulos, Jean-Bernard Martens

Currently much research is carried out on the subject of pervasive gaming. With the advances in technology, computers can easily be made small and portable. This opens up many possibilities for game designers to create outdoor pervasive games. Some of these games have been specifically developed for children. However, looking at these games, we see that they do not support the way children usually play outdoors. The reason for this is that most games are PDA—based games.

The use of PDA’s forces children to walk around head down looking at their handheld devices. As most, and sometimes all, interaction with the game is done via the screen, it limits both physical activity as well as social interaction. Contrasting the mode of play of existing pervasive games for children, where players are required to walk head down, we propose the concept “head-up games” (HUGs) as a new subset of pervasive games. It is our assertion that it is feasible to transfer some, or all, of the features of traditional outdoor games (like tag, or hide and seek) to pervasive games and that this would lead to enjoyable and sociable gaming experiences.

The aim of my project is to research and develop pervasive games that support and enhance children’s natural way of outdoor playing.