A Moment of Experimentation

In location-based games, the game narrative can influence the players’ movement within the city. The game world is notionally superimposed onto the city’s surface. The combination of technologies creates a game system that in turn creates a notional realm of social space. Maps and alerts represent real opponents and virtual objects from the game’s imaginary world. Employing representations of space, these games create a social world that encompasses the vicinity of the players. The players’ spatial practice forms the conditions for progress within the game narrative. Players may change their location and movement within the city to avoid or interact with other players, collect items and encounter opponents. These games recontextualize and give new meanings to the players’ location, rearticulating the spatial cohesion of reality through mobile access to virtual networks. Drakopoulou • A Moment of Experimentation 63 Aether Vol. v.a, 63–76, March 2010 © Copyright 2010, The Center for Geographic Studies • California State University, Northridge A Moment of Experimentation: Spatial Practice and Representation of Space as Narrative Elements in Location-based Games