Evaluation of Pervasive Games: Recruitment of Qualified Participants through Preparatory Game Phases

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how a preparatory game phase can effectively recruit qualified participants for a main pervasive game, enhancing user trial quality by leveraging initial game awareness.

Contribution

It introduces a two-phase pervasive game evaluation process, demonstrating how preparatory gameplay can improve participant selection for user trials.

Findings

Preparatory game phase helps identify suitable participants.

Players with higher preparatory game engagement show better main game performance.

Preliminary game awareness correlates with improved user trial outcomes.

Abstract

In this paper we present the evaluation process for Barbarossa, a pervasive role playing game. Barbarossa involves an invitational (preparatory) and a main execution phase. The former is freely available though Google Play store and may be played anytime/ anywhere. The latter defines three inter-dependent player roles acted by players who need to collaborate in a treasure hunting game. The eligibility of players for participating in the main game phase is restricted among those ranked relatively high in the invitational phase. Herein, we investigate the impact of the invitational game mode on the players overall game experience. The main hypothesis tested is that game awareness (gained from participating in a preliminary game phase) may serve as a means for recruiting the most suitable subjects for user trials on pervasive game research prototypes.