Pervasive Games and more

Here, for example, is a game called "The Man Who Was Thursday." It is, in its way, along with perhaps, HipSync, almost all you need to know about why you should be interested in this new site, the first to be devoted to "pervasive games."

Allow the authors to explain:

"Ludocity is a collection of pervasive games, street games and new sports - forms of play that interact with the environment in which they take place, spilling out into parks and city streets.

Some of the games on Ludocity overlap with theatre, painting, dance, and other art forms. Some of them use balloons, lumps of coal, huge sheets of paper, mp3 players, elaborate costumes, and short-range radio broadcasts. All of them have been released under a creative commons license, giving everyone permission to run that game for free, wherever and whenever they like."

Pervasive games are to games what audience-participation is to theater - a playful, perhaps, but sometimes dangerous shattering of the boundaries that separate players from observers. The success of a Pervasive game relies on the clarity of the game and the maturity of the players. Pervasive games tend to border on the invasive, pervasive though they may be. They can be great fun, but they are definitely being played on the edge, so to speak.

That makes Ludocity such a valuable resource. Not just its collection of games, but how each game is presented with great care and integrity, and the site itself written in a Wiki format to allow for participation, consensus, growth, and very much fun.



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith