REXplorer is a pervasive game service launching in June 2007. The game aims at persuading on site tourists to explore and enjoy the history of the UNESCO world heritage city core of Regensburg, Germany. In the game, historical and mythological spirits are stationed at touristic points of interest throughout the mostly Gothic and Romanesque city core of Regensburg. Players rent a special “paranormal activity detector ”- a device composed of a mobile phone and a GPS receiver in a custom designed shell- at Regensburg’s tourist information. Players interact with the location-based and site-specific spirits by performing a gesture, i.e. by waving the wandlike detector through the air in a specified fashion, thus “casting a spell”. Situated gestures allow players to evoke and communicate with spirits to receive and resolve quests. With their detector, players can also take pictures, which appear on each player’s individually generated souvenir, a weblog. The weblog also maps a player’s route, describes spirits a player has encountered, and lists books and deepening URLs for each character and site. In this paper, we focus on the rhetorical approach behind REXplorer, and discuss exemplary formal and dramaturgical persuasive design tactics. These tactics, we believe, can not only help to make “serious ” activities such as city exploration and history learning fun and sustainable, but also influence player behavior during pervasively computed and situated gameplay. Author Keywords Pervasive game design, game rhetoric, persuasive

Abstract. There is a growing interest in persuasive games designed to positively influence players ’ well-being in areas such as physical and mental health, particularly in terms of education. Designing such “wellbeing games ” is challenging because games themselves have not been sufficiently examined from this perspective. Examining the ways popular games convey messages persuasively is an important step in understanding design in this area. By studying the popular domain we can derive considerations for the design of games targeted at promoting human well-being. 1

REXplorer: Using player-centered iterative design techniques for pervasive game development

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