DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory
Brunel University, September, 2009
Volume: 5
ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
In this paper a player-centric view is taken to illustrate game rules in terms of definition and validation. Games with externally-defined but internally-validated rules are given the term contextually-ambiguous games, and it is suggested that a contemporary definition of pervasiveness in games should accommodate contextual ambiguity. Several pervasive games have displayed elements of this ambiguity, but examples of games which feature this as a core gameplay mechanism are rare. Therefore, four such games are implemented in a case study in order to explore the potential of contextually-ambiguous games. Results are tentative, but offer some insight into potentially popular features and target audiences of such games.