Participants are invited to either submit a short paper (max. 3000 words) about original ongoing research in Geogames or a position paper (max. 1500 words) describing a game demo or an application scenario. Short paper submissions will be reviewed and selected for a presentation during the workshop. The authors of selected position papers will be invited to participate in the panel discussion.

The topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Thematic focus 2016: Gamifying Geoinformation Crowdsourcing
• Experience reports about the design and development of Geogames
• GI technologies in video games and location-based games
• Playful approaches to Geodesign
• Data collection games, VGI games, human computation games
• Simulation and AR games
• Educational Geogames

For more information on the workshop visit the workshop website.

The topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Experience reports about the design and development of Geogames
• GI technologies in video games and location-based games
• Simulation and AR games
• Data collection games, VGI games, human computation games
• Playful approaches to Geodesign
• Educational / Serious Geogames

For more information on the workshop visit the workshop website.

At the Unconference Session on October 22nd, 1:30-4:30pm, the Geogames team presents lessons learned from designing location-based games since 2004. The Neocartographer game, a prototype which was developed within an ongoing cooperation with ESRI, is used as a running example to illustrate design challenges and possible solutions. Part of the session takes the attendants outside to compete in a real playing event! Further details about the Geogames session will be announced on-site.

Olga Yanenko, member of the Geogames team, is present at the ESRI EMEAUC from Monday 21st until Friday 25th. If you need more information or are interested in participating in the Geogames event or just want to chat about gamification and GIS, please write an email to and we will get back to you.

The fifth International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications was hosted at Bournemouth University, UK between the 11th and the 13th of September 2013. The conference brings together researchers, developers from the industry, practitioners and decision-makers which aim to advance the state of the art in all of the technologies related to serious games.

The short paper by Dominik Kremer (member of the Geogames team), Christoph Schlieder (head of the Geogames team), Barbara Feulner and Urike Ohl (partner from Geography Didactics at the University of Augsburg) describes spatial choices of Geogame players in an educational context based on a study of GPS tracks collected during a playing event.

Spatial Choices in an Educational Geogame

Abstract. Geogames are location-based games played in outdoor environments. Many use a time out mechanism to balance game play. Little is known on how this affects player motivation in learning experiences. We report evidence from an explorative empirical study which indicates that the perceived choice of a player has impact on the enjoyment of the learning experience. We identify the spatial choices of the players from their GPS
tracks and describe game design decisions that affect the number of spatial choices available to a player.

UPDATE

A video of Christoph Schlieder’s talk is now available on Youtube!

Christoph Schlieder: Learning to Understand Geodesigns by Playing Geogames

Abstract. The Playful Approaches to Geodesign Project (PlayGeo) at the University of Bamberg, Germany, applies concepts and technologies from location-based games to education in a general curriculum on spatial thinking. A collection of Geogames is created in which the players explore outdoor environments using GPS smartphones to access information, to complete documentation tasks, and to analyze spatial problems. The project uses ArcGIS for Android technology to build a game platform which assists educators to stage a Geogame in their local geographic environment. We present first lessons learned from the project and describe two scenarios for playful approaches to the early stages of the design process, that is, to understand an existing urban design (design reading games) as well as to discuss and evaluate a design (urban usability games). Based on an empirical study of a design reading game, we identify success factors for the playful approach to Geodesign.

One or more playing events will also be organized for interested people. This time the CityPoker game was chosen for demonstration. In CityPoker two players or teams start with a given poker hand and try to improve it by moving around in an outdoor environment to find cards hidden in caches.

If you need more information or are interested in participating in the Geogames event or just want to chat about gamification and GIS, please write an email to and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Several test runs of the new Neocartographer game developed at the University of Bamberg will be performed on-site. We would appreciate to find some volunteers that are interested in playing this game.

Are you interested in participating in the Neocartographer test game at the ESRI DevSummit or just want to chat about location-based games? Please send a short message to and we will keep you informed.

Learning to read a changing urban design.

The lightning talk presents first results from the Geogames and playful Geodesign project. Two game scenarios are described: (1) exploration games for learning how to make use of an existing spatial design (e.g. a campus game for freshmen), (2) feedback games in which the players report what they experience as the strengths and the weaknesses of a design (e.g. an urban usability game). The talk argues that such playful approaches do enrich the learning experience in a general curriculum on spatial thinking and are especially useful where learning at a younger age (10+) is concerned.