Mobile Gaming
Tears of joy, exalted cheers after a hard fought goal just before the final whistle of a football match, players leaping into each others arms on the field as well as the dumbstruck faces of the losing team – our feelings are expressed in many ways. And typically we experience these feelings together with others, with friends or acquaintances or persons we have never met before. Can moments of this sort or similar moments of social interaction also be generated in mobile telephone games? The connection of play and the possibilities of our everyday contact with mobile communication technology are the goal of the work “Mobile Gaming”. This goal is aided by the general prevalence of mobile telephones and the fact that these devices accompany us in nearly every situation. Furthermore, there is wide range of possibilities of direct communication among persons via speech, gesture and facial expressions. Precisely this sort of social interaction should be elicited and promoted in the games. “Mobile Gaming” endeavours to pursue this goal by means of three different game concepts. Each of these concepts share the characteristic of bringing people together in their immediate surroundings by means of the mobile telephone, which originally was intended for long-distance communication.
Children and young people today find dealing with mobile telephones completely normal and ordinary. Against this background, “Mobile Gaming” offers a possibility of interpersonal communication as found in classic parlour games. The game “Chinese Whispers” (interestingly also known as “Telephone”) serves as the first concept, placing the well known children’s game in a digital context and making spoken messages the central element of the game. A playing field emerges through the digital exchange of the messages through a given space.
The selected pirate will be displayed on the phone until going to fall over board
“Pirate Party” by contrast tries to include a physical character in the game. This occurs through a concept derived from the children’s game “Musical Chairs”. The contest here is not for seats but for mobile phones. The players try to grab hold of the devices and the game continues until the last mobile phone has been taken and a winner has been found. The third game “Wheel In” features a transformation of roulette into a digital game. The playing table is formed by the collection of all the mobile phones in the group, making a virtual roulette table in an altogether real circle of pub goers, for example.
Placing the bets on as much fields as players in the game
The three games transport the virtual space created by the technical capabilities of the mobile phone into a real context and the game experience into a social interaction.