Design and Evaluation of Player Experience of a Location-Based Mobile Game

Abstract

This paper reports on the design and evaluation of player experience of a Location-Based Mobile Game set in Dublin, Ireland in which players act as paranormal investigators hunting for ghosts and gathering evidence of paranormal activity. The paper focuses on players' experience of engagement and immersion, which was evaluated through a qualitative user study undertaken over a three-day period with the participation of 19 subjects. We first discuss the concept of immersion in gaming and then review related work before presenting the design and implementation of our prototype and the results of our user study. The results show that the experience succeeds in creating a high level of immersion at several stages in the game and that this immersion can be influenced by several factors including usability, control, modes of interaction, aesthetics, flow and, perhaps most significantly, choice of location.