Geogames: A Conceptual Framework and Tool for the Design of Location-Based Games from Classic Board Games

Location-based games introduce an element that is missing in interactive console games: movements of players involving locomotion and thereby the physical effort characteristic of any sportive activity. The paper explores how to design location-based games combining locomotion with strategic reasoning by using classical board games as templates. It is shown that the straightforward approach to “spatialize” such games fails. A generic approach to spatialization is presented and described within a conceptual framework that defines a large class of geogames. The framework is complemented by a software tool allowing the game designer to find the critical parameter values which determine the game’s balance of reasoning skills and motoric skills. In order to illustrate the design method, a location-based version of the game TicTacToe is defined and analyzed.