REVEALING INTERACTIONS: SITUATED PLAY FOR FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE

This chapter describes the idea beyond Noar, a persuasive urban game designed to enquire if and how players can get affected by a game experience aimed at subverting common patterns of interaction, triggering reflections about usual or unusual social interactions. In particular: Can it increase players’ awareness of a topic of social matter as anxiety? Can we push social interactions via in-game mechanics for impacting on players, creating or increasing understanding? The game aims at involving players into a story of transformation, where they are not spectators who watch and empathise with the characters portrayed. They become actors in the story who can directly put themselves to the test, overturning their way of experiencing interactions. Tackling the fundamental issue of how individuals relate to their surroundings and to others, Noar intends to start a game-based process of change, which fundamentals are rooted in situated transformational learning theory (Mezirow, 1996). This game is indeed designed to challenge our ordinary way of perceiving and experiencing social interactions, and suggests consequential meaning making.