Summary

AR games are at once ambitious and a very young class of digital entertainment. They have a very high potential and bright conceptual base, but very few really good examples exist. Many games look like a good presentation of some aspect of the technology, rather than a product with an addictive gameplay and interesting plot. AR is a capricious thing; there are dozens of factors that can ruin the illusion of an additional layer of reality. Nevertheless, it is worth to dream and design such games, especially if there is an interesting idea at hand. Some technical issues can be minimized by various creative tricks. The concept should be so good and intriguing that players should not be lazy to print out some fiducial markers or simply trace them by hand. It will help them to open a window into a new reality that can only be seen through a mobile device. Maybe someday we will be surrounded by games, and all our duties and even the physical reality will be "gamificated". Boredom...