Evaluating design constraints for proximity-based games in a real urban topology

In these last years we are witnessing a growing availability of personal mobile devices equipped with short-range communication technologies. This new technology wave is pushing for innovative services based on location and context which are difficult to provide by means of the classical 3G networks infrastructure. Among these new services, portable games based on contact are already moving down this path and extending to a large, urban and multiplayer scale thanks to the exploitation of Delay Tolerant and Opportunistic Networks. In this paper we contribute with practical directions to game designers about constraints impacting on gameplay and game mechanics when designing the above games for an urban-wide scale. Our investigation is also performed by means of simulations on the topology of a real city in order to estimate technical bounds to the practical design of compelling games.