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Mobile games are quickly appearing in many dimensions of our lived environment, but few go beyond the small screen. Mobile games that are particularly innovative or locative are often low-profile, focusing on art, or civics at the neighborhood level. The big picture for such games has been hard to see. This report addresses the mobile frontier for civic games, which is fragmented across the applied domains of activism, art and learning. We argue that these three domains can and should speak jointly - an approach we call the civic "tripod." Our site structure is part of its contribution, with a curated database of projects and interviews from the field.

this issue of the journal focuses on gaming and mobile computing....

The year 2012 is certain to reflect U.S. consumers' continued love affair with sophisticated smartphones and tablets. One of the driving forces in the popularity of these devices is their ability to run mobile apps using wireless location-based services (LBS). Among other benefits, LBS allow access to real-time and historical location information online - whether to facilitate a social interaction or event, play games, house-hunt or engage in many other activities.

Like most well-designed things, the magic of an iPad app comes from a union of usefulness, usability and meaning. Games aside, the app must be useful by solving a problem that people actually have through the right set of functionality at the right time. It must be easy to use and, just as importantly, easy to get started using, without a lot of pesky setup and learning steps. And it must hold meaning for the user through visual beauty, an emotional connection, personal insights, etc. In this article, we won't outline the entire design process for creating an iPad app, but we will explore 10 of the key things to think about when designing your app (and planning the design process).