Last night I went on the hunt for Hide and Seek’s tiny games at the Southbank. Hide and Seek are a game design studio that focus on ‘inventing new kinds of play’. I’m a firm believer in play, fun, and enjoyment being central to any meaningful interaction with anything and anyone. This is why I love Hide and Seek’s ethos of play being an integral design tool to understand the development of culture. I first came across Hide and Seek at the V&A lates: Playgrounds (I posted about it here). I love their sense of fun and couldn’t wait to find the tiny games. Teeny Tiny games appeal to me, as I’m an incredibly shy person with an extrovert trapped inside me. I want to take part in massive public playtests and Sandpits, but the fact that I’m actually terrified of social situations and making conversations has always stopped me. That makes me sound like a big nerd. I’m not I’m just really shy. Basically I’m quintessentially English; I have one topic of conversation: The Weather. Luckily yesterday it was raining; I managed to discuss it for a whole five minutes. But then my mind goes blank and you can see the fear in my eyes. Awkward silences in conversations are normally my fault, yet once they start I can’t fill the void. It’s dreadful. Tiny games which aren’t too in your face are the shy girl’s saviour. They take over the shyness, make you focus, make you competitive and make you look at your environment. All good conversation starters!
We spent ages hunting down the ten games, from Roll of quarters, to People Pooh Sticks (genius game). Exploring the Southbank as we went, seeing it in a completely new light; it became our playground. The paving slabs became our chess board, working our way up and down different levels of the outside space engaging with the environment in completely wonderful ways. It became infuriating when we had found 9! But finally the tenth was found, and we all went home feeling happy and full of a sense of achievement.
I like the concept of pervasive gaming, because it makes you look at your location in a completely different way. It mixes up person to person interaction with person to environment interaction and makes you really focus on your surroundings in order to take part in the game. I would really like to use some of pervasive gaming concepts in my research; to create some unexpected engaging experiences with digital museum content in physical spaces. Getting people to consider museum collections in a different way, to make people think, and most importantly to get people having fun along the way. And if I can manage to get shy people like myself to jump in and have a go, then all the better! Teeny Tiny pervasive games have sparked something…
Claire Bailey-Ross 