Poly-Pervasive Playgrounds and Pitfalls: A Deployment Autoethnography of What We Take With Us

Abstract

What We Take With Us is a series of interconnected wellbeing-focused pervasive games I created based on my experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. The game was played in three formats, or "playgrounds" - an online alternate reality game, a physical room-based game, and game-based workshops. The design of these formats is discussed, followed by an analytic autoethnography of my experiences deploying and running each format. These accounts are thematically analysed with reference to existing research to suggest challenges and opportunities for consideration when deploying such games. This includes targeting and community issues, struggles around the presentation of pervasive games and the labour involved in making them, the dissonance felt as both a designer and researcher on personally situated projects, and the issues deploying such games in a post-pandemic era. Notable opportunities are also discussed, including the use of social media algorithms for advertising, the effect of the lusory attitude on games research participation, and how success can be defined in such projects.