In collaboration with Nokia Research Center in Tampere, Finland, we wanted to investigate how computer games can be designed to regain some of the more social aspects of traditional games, as well as how they can free the players from the desktop environment.

'Pirates!' is a game implemented on a hand-held computer fitted with wireless server-connectivity (802.11b) and custom-made radio-based proximity sensors. These devices detect the signals transmitted by low-range beacons that are placed in the physical environment, enabling the server to have a fairly good idea of where each client is within a space.

The beacons represent islands in a game where the player is a pirate captain and the handheld device is the ship. In order to sail to the different islands, the player must move around in the physical space. In this way we were able to extract the act of navigating the game world from being something you do on a screen, to being something you must do in person.