‘Bristol at the forefront of Playable City’

Last week while playing a game Happilee on the Bearpit, an older lady approached me to ask me what we were doing. As I explained that we were playtesting a game in which you protect a nervous robot in public space, her eyes lit up and she asked, “Is that the Go game?”

Turns out it was a pretty good guess. Pokemon Go, in case you are one of the few who hasn’t heard of it, is a new augmented-reality iOS and Android game that has an estimated 9.5 million players daily. To play, you are a trainer and your goal is to catch Pokemon that appear on your screen as you wander around the real world, so the Pokemon you catch are as likely to be in your bedroom as the local park. 

Aside from providing welcome respite from Brexit conversation, Pokemon is changing popular perception of technology and real world play.

Having spent almost a decade trying to explain real world games with technology to people, and responding with, “Is it like Pacman?”, I am thrilled to see everyone talking about Pokemon Go.

It doesn’t matter that the game is one of many existing real world augmented reality games (insert gamer eye-roll here), it doesn’t matter that the game crashes all the time.

It’s fascinating to see the stories of strangers connecting, hooking up, arguing, getting lost, wandering for hours around their city rediscovering familiar spaces.

After all, reality has the best graphics. What matters is everyone is involved.

Adults, teenagers and kids of all age and descriptions are playing in the streets, discovering, connecting and using technology to not drop out, but to tune in.

Pokemon Go is the ultimate ‘gateway game’ for city based experiences. Whilst some see it as an end in itself, it’s also an entry point to getting people used to the idea of multiple realities.

Home to previous festivals like Igfest, and massive street games like 2.8 Hours Later, Bristol has been at the forefront of this work for years. Merging play and technology, the Playable City Award is an annual commission for designers uses play to ignite our city spaces to start conversation about the type of cities we want to live in.

This has led to people having meaningful conversations with lampposts, dancing with their shadow and even chasing projected rabbits.

Thanks to Pokemon Go, more people are now open to the idea of the whole city being a playground.

The fourth annual call for Playable City ideas is open for entries and as always we are excited to see what people come up with, but perhaps this year the task of convincing people to join in with be a little easier, thanks to Pokemon Go.

Stay tuned, Bristol.

Hilary O’Shaughnessy is the producer for Playable City. She has a background in theatre, gaming and interaction design. If you are interested in applying for The Playable City Award, visit www.playablecity.com/awards/award-2016/ for full details of what is on offer and how to apply.

Read more: I went hunting for Pokemon in Bristol so you didn’t have to