Balancing the Augmented Experience: Design Tensions in the Location-Based Game Pikmin Bloom
First author: LaatoYear: 2022
Abstract
Within the general development of games becoming more pervasive and daily life turning more gameful, various location- and movement-based games have become prominent in contemporary culture, and are increasingly used in augmenting the physical reality. This study investigates tensions that arise in augmenting the mundane experience of walking in both urban and nature environments with location-based games (LBGs). We conducted an 8-week autoethnographic study of a newly launched LBG, Pikmin Bloom, a game that can be characterised as gamified walking. We focused on the central design tension of “augmenting walking vs. avoiding disturbing players’ everyday life.” Connected to this, we discuss four other tensions: (1) promise of future vs. enjoyable present; (2) too abundant vs. too scarce rewards; (3) seeking symbiosis vs. manipulating the environment; and (4) player privacy vs. immersive gameplay. This work-in-progress suggests that failing to optimally balance these tensions can have detrimental effects on the playing experience.Details
Language: EnglishCountry of affiliation: Finland
Published in: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts (CHI ’22 Extended Abstracts), April 29-May 5, 2022
Publication type: Conference proceeding
Source: https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519785
Games
No Results
Franchises
No Results
Studies
Description: Diary entries to record personal experiences (varied in format between authors, e.g., photography, raw observations, structured summary)
Research type: Non-experimental
Data type: Qualitative
Comparator: none
Control group: no
Pilot study: no
Pre/post measures used: no
Follow-up: no
Sample type: Game(s)
Sample size: 1
Power analysis: no
Sample countries: null
Games studied: Pikmin Bloom
Franchises studied: Pikmin (F)
Study outcomes: Gameplay experience