Abstract
As Near-Field Communication (NFC) becomes a mainstream feature in today’s smartphones, it opens up a new range of applications and games. In this paper, we introduce and explore the idea of tangible and casual NFC games. First, we show how we can use NFC not just for its conventional use cases of information lookup and exchange, but in novel interaction techniques that offer players the fun of manipulating physical objects as part of the gameplay. Further, we show how using the unique ID present in most NFC tags and cards enables us to create games that can be downloaded and played by users “on impulse” - anytime, anywhere, without the need to distribute application-specific tags or install any infrastructure. To demonstrate these techniques, we present several NFC games we have implemented, including novel variations of popular traditional games and toys. We also present results from a public beta trial showing that users around the world are able to successfully play and enjoy our games using transit cards, ID cards, and other cards they already have.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Blöckner, M., Danti, S., Forrai, J., Broll, G., De Luca, A.: Please Touch the Exhibits! Using NFC-based Interaction for Exploring a Museum. In: Proc. MobileHCI 2009 (2009)
Boyd, J.: Here comes the wallet phone. IEEE Spectrum 42(11) (2005)
Broll, G., Graebsch, R., Holleis, P., Wagner, M.: Touch to Play – Mobile Gaming with Dynamic, NFC-based Physical User Interfaces. In: Proc. MobileHCI 2010 (2010)
Budde, A., Michahelles, F.: Product Empire – Serious play with barcodes. In: Proc. Internet of Things Conference (2010)
Clark, M.: A definitive list of NFC Phones. Near Field Communications World (viewed in February 2012), http://www.nfcworld.com/nfc-phones-list/
Coulton, P., Rashid, O., Bamford, W.: Experiencing ‘Touch’ in Mobile Mixed Reality Games. In: Proc. of the 4th Intl. Conf. in Computer Game Design and Technology (2006)
Foursquare.com: Experimenting with NFC check-ins for Google I/O (May 9, 2011), http://blog.foursquare.com/2011/05/09/experimenting-with-nfc-check-ins-for-google-io/
Hardy, R., Rukzio, E., Holleis, E., Wagner, M.: Mobile interaction with static and dynamic NFC-based displays. In: Proc. MobileHCI 2010 (2010)
Procs. of IEEE International Workshops on Near Field Communication (2009-2011)
Leichtenstern, K., Andre, E.: Studying Multi-User Settings for Pervasive Games. In: Proc. MobileHCI 2009 (2009)
Martinussen, E.S., Arnall, T.: Designing with RFID. In: Proc. of TEI 2009 (2009)
Nandwani, A., Coulton, P., Edwards, R.: NFC Mobile Parlor Games Enabling Direct Player to Player Interaction. In: Proc. 3rd Int’l. Workshop on NFC (2011)
Near Field Communication and the NFC Forum: The Keys to Truly Interoperable Communications (October 2007), http://www.nfc-forum.org/resources/white_papers/nfc_forum_marketing_white_paper.pdf
Qt Bluetooth Tennis (2011), http://doc.qt.nokia.com/qtmobility-1.2/bttennis.html
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sarmenta, L.F.G. (2012). Tangible and Casual NFC-Enabled Mobile Games. In: Kay, J., Lukowicz, P., Tokuda, H., Olivier, P., Krüger, A. (eds) Pervasive Computing. Pervasive 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7319. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31205-2_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31205-2_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31204-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31205-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)