The Road as a Stage in Journey Games

Abstract

The delight and playfulness of road use can be drastically enhanced through the design of computer games that in various ways include encounters with other drivers and roadside objects. The success of such games depends on balancing demands that local geography and social life be made transparent and legible, with the possibility to transform and play with the meaning of spatial properties in the landscape. Architects with an interest in designing the road side have favored an adaptation of roadside architecture, to make local community life transparent to the mobile visitors, whereas others agreed on the distracting effect of high speed on the drivers appreciation of road side architecture, but instead saw it as an advantage that should be preserved. The latter argue that the speed provides an opportunity to engulf the traveler in a new role by designing roadside objects with heightened symbolism, e.g., the bold signs in Las Vegas that are reminiscent of Roman culture. Signs and architecture can be used to enable the imaginary. The speed of the vehicles erases the ordinary local meaning of individual geographical objects, which is then transformed into something completely different through large-scale roadside architecture. In this case, we can learn from these experiences in order to develop a digital road side architecture that enhances mobile computer gaming.