Pervasive Games

Pervasive Games

Top of the... evening... to ya mortals!

Right, this post (if you didn't get it from the title) is all about pervasive games. Pervasive games are games which, instead of being in their own world, as with most games (including board games, card games, and video games), crossover into real life. A favourite example of pervasive games is "Killer".

Killer is a game in which a group of people, often strangers, are each individually given a target member of the team by the Game Master; the "hunter" has all of the information they need about their "victim", and has to hunt them down and "kill" them through non-lethal means (such as "stabbing" them with a wooden spoon), whilst evading their own hunter. Once the victim has been killed, they are out of the game. Once all victims have been killed, then another round begins, where the remaining players are each given a new target to hunt down. This continues until there is only one player left. This game very much relates to The Tenth Victim, the film I blogged about the other day.

Unfortunately, due to political correctness going utterly mad, this game is banned in many public areas, including universities, though this is done privately by the university, rather than a blanket ban.

In response to this, a variation of Killer was created called "Cruel to be Kind". This involves attacking others with phrases rather than makeshift weapons. Most commonly used are "Welcome to [insert name of town or city]".

There have been some pervasive games in the past which have crossed the point of the players even knowing they're playing a game, one of the points where a game ceases to be a game and becomes a different experience altogether. One example of this was the "Art of the Heist"; the theft of an Audi A3 was staged in order to lead the curious into a game of chasing leads over the Internet as a publicity stunt to advertise the new car.

But, yeah, those are pervasive games.

Cya again in a few minutes, mortals.

Hail Emperor.