Blast Theory is an artists’ collective in the UK that does a lot of work with pervasive gaming, amongst other things. They are mainly famous for their games Uncle Roy  All Around You and Can You See Me Now, both of which are games played in cities in small groups of online players and street players who are equipped with fancy schmancy GPS-enabled PDAs. The games are very innovative and creative, but they are not consumer products and are not available for general consumption (not that that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying.)

The reason I mention them is largely because one of their other works, Day of the Figurines, has got me thinking. In this piece, there’s an actual miniature village full of figurines.

To begin the game, players are invited to create their own figurine: to name it, answer questions about its past and how it is represented to other players. They then see him or her placed in the town. Thereafter participation in the game is via mobile phone. Players receive a minimum of one text a day updating them on the progress of their figurine and are invited to make increasingly challenging decisions over the fate of themselves and other players in response to deteriorating circumstances. Players can join or leave the game at any time. One of the key aspects of this new form of artwork is that it is situated within players’ daily lives and can be accessed at any time.

This is interesting to me because players can participate in a narrative space through lightweight, structured interactions.

I love the idea of narratives that are molded through audience participation, and I love the idea of open source worlds like Saijo City. The problem in my mind has always been finding a model of participation that is relatively undemanding but still significant. On the one hand, very unstructured bottom-up participation, such as the kind practiced by fan-fic writers, is hugely compelling to those involved but ultimately pretty inaccessible. On the other hand, highly structured top-down participation, such as being able to vote for who the protaganist of a TV show should date, is cool but not very rewarding for the individual decision-maker. Day of the Figurines points to an interesting middle ground: participation that is structured and accessible, but still acknowledges the unique contributions of individuals. Despite the lowkey nature of participation, players still have a meaningful investment in the world, as manifested by their tangible avatar. Of course, there’s no reason to stop it there — you could have a sliding scale of interaction, moving from the structured to the freeform, so that engaged players who want to contribute more can do so.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!