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
The current generation of handheld devices have substantially greater processor speeds and graphics capabilities than the previous generation. With these gains, handheld devices have crossed an important technological threshold. It is now possible to blend the methods and practices used to create larger scale Augmented Reality (AR) experiences with those used to design handheld games. Handheld Augmented Reality (HAR) games render rich graphical content into live video of the physical world, captured from the integrated camera and displayed on the handheld device. We are particularly interested in using HAR technologies that create a tight coupling between virtual content and objects in the physical world, enabling styles of interaction and types of play that leverage the clear relationships between the physical and virtual worlds. The resulting HAR games represent a new genre of gaming with its own unique set of affordances. However, HAR applications do not fit neatly into the theories and practices of any of the disciplines that intersect this research space. For example, notions of “presence” typically used to evaluate the effectiveness of achieving non-mediation in AR applications are confounded by the handheld form factor and the mobility it entails. Conversely, the constraint of being coupled to objects and events in the physical world renders many of the practices and assumptions behind mobile computing (computing anywhere, anytime) inappropriate. Similarly, practices found in game design, such as paper prototyping, need to be updated to account for the unique interactive affordances of this new medium.