Matt Watkins

‘Ere Be Dragons: heartfelt gaming

Abstract A new pervasive digital game is discussed, relating technical and conceptual innovation. A combination of sensor technologies enables a responsive visual and auditory environment to be overlaid on the real world. This allows processes within the players body to be mapped to the environment through which the player passes, externalising the internal. Rather than using technology to replicate the rigid goals and structures of many conventional games, this game explores the concept of ‘open play’, a form of personal exploration. The work is an interdisciplinary collaboration between digital artists and health scientists with an agenda to alter players’attitudes to the body and health as well as to break new ground artistically.

'Ere be dragons: an interactive artwork

The paper introduces a pervasive digital artwork which harnesses live heart-rate and GPS data to create a novel experience on a Pocket PC. The aims of the project, the technologies employed and the results of a preliminary trial are briefly described.

Them and Us: An indoor pervasive gaming experience

Abstract The emergence of pervasive technologies has led to an increased interest in both the design and the development of pervasive games. This paper presents “Them and Us”, an indoor pervasive game which uses theatrical processes to encourage social interaction within the confines of the game. The “Them and Us” game play places a group of people together in a single space to interact with one another, whilst location-based technology informs us about the locative-nature (who, where and when) of the social interactions formed while in that space, in order to score points based on this interaction. “Them and Us” adopts a narrative-based approach in which a script informs the way that participants play the game and the way their social behaviour, in regard to this becomes part of the game mechanism. This new genre of interactive game-based artwork intertwines the physical and virtual contexts of the players in order to create new and exciting player experiences. The design of “Them and Us” emphasizes the use of tracking the audience and performers as a way to encourage interaction within the game-space.

Perceptive Media – Adaptive Storytelling for Digital Broadcast

Storytelling techniques within traditional broadcast media have not made major advances in recent years due to the linear and relatively rigid approach to narrative despite advances in the technology that delivers the content. This research proposes the concept of ‘perceptive media’ in which the content creators have at their disposal different tools and sensors to allow for the subtle adaption of the narrative without any direct interactions from the audience members. The concept is demonstrated through the creation of a ‘perceptive radio’ that is able to play specially designed content that adapts to the physical and social context in which the radio resides.