Designing for Serendipity

1. Overview

Name

• Designing for Serendipity

Intent

Creating magic moments of serendipity to blend reality where the game and real location seem to align.

2. Target

Problem

Creating effective mixed reality experiences demands blending the reality of the game with the physical reality of the site to create a sense of two worlds that are connected and part of each other. However, locative experiences can sometimes feel separated from the space within which they are set in a way that fails to capitalize on the immersive potential of mixed reality.

Context

The user is playing a locative game at a heritage site where there is potential to further blend the reality between the game and the location.

Forces

The success of this pattern in non-deterministic as it depends on events outside the game occurring. As such the predictability and likelihood of these events will impact the frequency with which the desired result is achieved.

Consequences

Weaknesses:

• This design pattern is unpredictable and will not work for every player. Rather the designer works to maximize the chance of it occurring without it being certain.

Strengths:

• By designing with a view towards serendipitous moments of collision between realities we can create “magic moments” where the two align that create both locative game harmony and a memorable experience.

3. Application

Solution

By encouraging the player to observe their surroundings and making reference to likely occurrences (such as groups of people often at the site, likely weather, or common environmental factors. This can create moments of surprise and delight in which game worlds and real worlds align, promoting a sense of ludic harmony and joy in an unexpected reframing of the material world.

We identify two forms of this pattern – intentional and unintentional. For intentional serendipity the designer notes that while serendipity can’t be explicitly planned (or it would cease to be serendipity), it can be fostered with intent in the following ways: 

• Opportunity through Abundance: by providing many opportunities for the game world and real world to align, however briefly, the designer improves chances that they will do so.
• Opportunity through Popularity: by refining opportunities based on popular use-patterns of sites, the designer improves the likelihood that events within the game world and the real world may align.

Unintentional serendipity relies on universal chaos, and habits of apophenia among users. As such, it is not very reliable. However, we would propose that the magic circle of game-player thinking represents an opportunity to foster pattern-thinking which, in the context of locative games, encourages players to see the material world differently than when not framed by the context of games. Unintentional serendipity is fostered by (ludo)narratively embedding the game fiction within a realistic context for the site. It is then up to the player to make links that make sense to them. It’s like emergent narrative, but more like emergent ludic harmony.

Rationale

The immersive potential of mixed reality experiences relies on a sense of magically blending the two realities. While this can be done using technology and narrative, designing serendipitous collisions can amplify this experience.

Implementation Details

Suggestions:

Issues:

Pitfalls:

Impact on Player Experience

Serendipity in mixed reality experiences shares some design principles with that of emergent narrative – in that it is, to some extent about the designer hedging their luck, creating a context where the player is encouraged to look for connections, and leveraging the apophenia to find connections out of chaos. The designer can plan for this through intentional serendipity or create ambiguous experiences in a context where players will be looking for reality blending and where unintentional serendipity may happen.
 
The impact of this is arguably one of further and enhanced immersion as the player increasingly sees connections between their game and the reality they are inhabiting. While they cannot be relied upon to certainly occur creating an experience rich in serendipitous potential within the magic circle of a mixed reality game can see the immersion amplified.

Example

As part of CS2 and the Avebury Adventures Anthology designers experimented with designing for serendipity in a range of experiences.

The experience was very positive reviewed by players who both enjoyed the creativity of the game but also the novelty of this way of engaging with the heritage site. The gathering of inspiration/sticks took players on a walk around the site where they could experience a range or locations but then the act of creation also encouraged them to spend time observing the site in order to inform that creation.

Two tours of Avebury take place each day, excepting extreme weather. Of Avebury’s many stones, ‘The Devil’s Chair’ is among the most popular with visitors. The designer makes diegetic reference to the player encountering tour groups and visitors with cameras. On a harsh winter day it is unlikely that the player would encounter either phenomenon (however, it is also less likely that they would choose to play an outdoor game on such a day). On even a mild spring day before the heavy tourist season, both phenomena occurred.

Unintentional serendipity is harder to example as, but its nature, it is less explicit design and more design occurring within a space where it can emerge and where the player is perhaps likely to look for it

An example could be seen in Bloom and Wander – a puzzle game where the player travels to stones at Avebury, solves mixed reality spatial puzzles at stones, and as they succeed flowers bloom around the site coloring in an initially grey map and in mixed reality around the stones themselves. A player experience on a misty day noted that as the mist lifted from the stones bringing colour to reality the grey map of the game also became colorful creating an unintended, but effective, serendipitous moment.

4. Supplementary Information

Biography

Version 1.0 (19/3/26) – Initial pattern based on close reading analysis. Charlie Hargood (BU)

Discussion

This could be considered a design strategy rather than a singular explicit pattern, a means for the designer to shape other patterns towards the potential reward of serendipity.