ABSTRACT
How do the examples in this chapter help us understand the practice of storytelling in the mobile media age? By linking players’ movements in the physical world to their accomplishments in virtual gameworlds, location-based mobile games (LBMGs) have quite literally added a new dimension to in-game storytelling. Exploding the traditional boundaries of the TV screen and computer monitor, LBMGs allow a game’s story to extend beyond the virtual. For example, during a gameplay session, the local Starbucks might become the site for a battle with an enemy wizard, or a lonely tree on the horizon might turn out to be the final resting place of a pair of star-crossed lovers murdered by a jealous prince. After the game is over, such resonances remain with the player, effectively mingling gameplay with everyday life. This meshing of the virtual and the physical is exemplified in the LBMG geocaching, and, specifically, the geocaching-based game University of Death. Ultimately, I argue that LBMGs represent the possibility for more engaging in-game narratives as well as more meaningful player-directed explorations of gameworlds by virtue of their ability to blur the line between the physical and the virtual.
