Near Field Communication in the development of ubiquitous games

This paper presents the use of Near Field Communication and mobile technologies for the development of ubiquitous games. We describe all the components necessary for the building of ubiquitous games: the MIDlet or program running on the mobile phone with NFC features, the services available in the back-end system in charge of the game control and the tool devoted to real-time surveillance and visualization of the game and players state. Also we show the advantages of NFC for the development of ubiquitous games, thanks to the existence of standards and Java APIs for easy development, standardization and integrated use of different communications technologies and the secure management of information and communications.