In this work, we discuss multiplayer pervasive games that rely on the use of ad hoc mobile sensor networks. The unique feature in such games is that players interact with each other and their surrounding environment by using movement and presence as a means of performing game-related actions, utilizing sensor devices. We discuss the fundamental issues and challenges related to these type of games and the scenarios associated with them. We also present and evaluate an example of such a game, called the "Hot Potato", developed using the Sun SPOT hardware platform. We provide a set of experimental results, so as to both evaluate our implementation and also to identify issues that arise in pervasive games which utilize sensor network nodes, which show that there is great potential in this type of games.
Crossmedia games are a genre of pervasive gaming where a single game instance can be played with a variety of heterogeneous devices that support different forms of players' participation and deliver different game experiences. In this article we present the PM2G initiative, a service-oriented architecture aiming to support crossmedia game development and execution. Due to their relevance in this document, content adaptation and interaction adaptation services are discussed in detail. We also present, as a case study, a game called Pervasive Wizards, which is used to validate our architecture. Finally, we present some performance results obtained in our experiments. A new generation of entertainment technology takes computer games to the streets---and ultimately beyond.  Human Pacman is an interactive ubiquitous and mobile entertainment system that is built upon position and perspective sensing via Global Positioning System and inertia sensors; and tangible human-computer interfacing with the use of Bluetooth and capacitive sensors. Although these sensing-based subsystems are weaved into the fabric of the game and are therefore translucent to players, they are nevertheless the technical enabling forces behind Human Pacman. The game strives to bring the computer gaming experience to a new level of emotional and sensory gratification by embedding the natural physical world ubiquitously and seamlessly with a fantasy virtual playground. We have progressed from the old days of 2D arcade Pacman on screens, with incremental development, to the popular 3D game console Pacman, and the recent mobile online Pacman. With our novel Human Pacman, we have a physical role-playing computer fantasy together with real human-social and mobile-gaming that emphasizes on collaboration and competition between players in a wide outdoor physical area that allows natural wide-area human-physical movements. Pacmen and Ghosts are now real human players in the real world experiencing mixed computer graphics fantasy-reality provided by using wearable computers that are equipped with GPS and inertia sensors for players' position and perspective tracking. Virtual cookies and actual tangible physical objects with Bluetooth devices and capacitive sensors are incorporated into the game play to provide novel experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds. In short, we believe Human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that is based on sensing technology and anchored on physicality, mobility, social interaction, and ubiquitous computing. Pervasive games are an emerging new game genre, which includes context information as an integral part of the game. These games differ from traditional games in that they expand spatio-temporal and social aspects of gaming. Mobile devices support this by enabling players to choose when and where a game is played. Designing pervasive games can be a challenging task, since it is not only limited to the virtual game world, but designers must consider information flow from the real world into the game world and vice versa. In this paper, we describe a user study with an experimental pervasive multiplayer mobile game. The objective was to understand how the players perceive pervasiveness in the game and what the crucial factors are in the design. Based on the results, we propose initial design guidelines and compare them to other design guidelines for the pervasive games.  In this paper, we've made an initial attempt to explore the three dimensions of pervasive game play in the context of people's everyday life. Using an advanced prototype of SupaFly, a pervasive game developed by the former company It's Alive (now part of Daydream), we've evaluated how people perceive and play the game in normal, everyday settings. Our evaluation focused on how the players judged the designers' attempts to incorporate the three dimensions in the game. In this article we attempt to describe and analyze the formalisms of pervasive games and pervasive gaming (PG). As the title indicates, PG consists of atomic entities that nevertheless merge into a molecular structure that exhibits emergent features during the actual game-play. The article introduces four axes of PG (mobility, distribution, persistence, and transmediality). Further, it describes and analyses three key units of PG (rules, entities, and mechanics) as well as discusses the role of space in PG by differentiating between tangible space, information-embedded space, and accessibility space. The article is generally concerned with classifying the indispensable components of pervasive games and, in addition, it lists the invariant features of pervasive game-play, meaning the epistemology that is tied to this new kind of gaming situated on the borderline between corporeal and immaterial space. Of particular interest are game rules in pervasive gaming, since they seem to touch upon both the underlying, formal structure of the game (i.e., the ontology of PG) and the actual play vis-a-vis physical and or virtual constraints (i.e., the PG epistemology). 