Keeping coherence across thresholds. A narrative perspective in Hybrid Games

This chapter explores the concept of hybrid games as artifacts that expand between the digital and the physical. It focuses particularly on the often overlooked, but nevertheless significant, idea of the threshold. Relying on the sociological concept of boundary objects, we examine and unpack how devices, spaces, objects, and ultimately people act as thresholds. We look at games as complex ecosystems, with the term “threshold” functioning as a switch between the ordinary and the extraordinary. We pay specific attention to the way in which narratives can be used and enhanced in hybrid games. As such, we investigate how thresholds can be wisely designed, consciously integrated, and intertwined within hybrid games. Taking such a perspective requires carefully considering both the role and the potential of elements to convey, sustain, and feed narrative. To that end, we conduct a critique of stories embedded in games and, in consequence, question how technology-sustained games can include physical elements as meaningful gateways that strengthen and nurture narrative. To deal with such a challenging topic, we examine the data and knowledge we gained from a four-year study on how to design location-based games embedded with narratives.