Serb.I.Am

Game „Serb.I.Am“ is first pervasive game project produced by ApsArt and conceptualized by Bogdan Španjević and Mirko Stojković. Game was played at the „Hide and Seek Weekender“ festival of social games which was held in National Theatre in London, in July 2010. Hide and Seek is one of the programs of famous London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) and a meeting place of best UK designers of pervasive games. This year, for the first time, one Serbian pervasive game – „Serb.I.Am“ was played during the Festival.

Game is conceptualized as a entertaining and educational set of tasks which purpose is to help English audience to get acquainted and more familiar with life in Serbia. Game consist of four tasks each referred to one of the states that existed on the territory of today’s Serbia during last thirty years. Tasks were related to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and finally to Republic of Serbia. More than hundred Londoners enjoyed on South Bank learning recent Serbian history on 11th July 2010.

This game became a theatre form similar to street theatre and showed that is possible to speak about difficult topics (such is recent Serbian history) on unpretentious and entertaining way. This ad hoc street theatre enabled players to overcome prejudices and therefore became strong instrument of communication.

Players used their Bluetooth mobile phones to receive tasks and progress through the game. For this purpose, ApsArt patented and developed special hardware – „pervasive games terminal“ which function is to send digital content to player’s mobile phone. This technology is completely developed in Serbia, in partnership with enterprise SDD ITG, which is part of science-technological park at Institut Mihajlo Pupin in Belgrade.