Designing and Creating Environment Aware Games

This paper presents different possibilities on using environment data in games. Instead of using synthetic environment data it is shown how to gather, process, store, and use real-life environment data for a more realistic game experience. Using environment data is not difficult but problems of heterogeneity, availability, quality, and volume of the data must be solved. Realistic environment data opens new possibilities for game design, but care must be taken not to give the environment changes too much control over the gameplay. A method for integrating environment data into a pervasive mobile phone game is shown. The adopted solution is simple, flexible, independent from any operator, and can be used for other applications.