The 20th international conference on geographic information science – Agile 2017 hosted at Wageningen, The Netherlands, was the perfect space to exchange and discuss ideas about games, playfulness, gamification and geospatial technologies at the Fourth workshop on geogames and geoplay co-organized by GEOTEC (Geo-C) and the Geogames team from University of Bamberg, the thematic focus defined for the workshop was “Gamifying the Open Smart City”.

The Five selected papers explored a wide range of concepts related to this research field, from the use of the serious games approach for gathering critical spatial thinking, an agent-based simulation framework for geogrames, to three different available geogames (NavApps, Smart Beetles, and BioDiv2Go). The hands on session allowed to shape one experiment from the GEO-C (www.geo-c-eu) european project aiming to promote cycling as a feasible commuting mode combining gamification and geographical information sciences.

The discussion about geogames went beyond the workshop, on the one hand when different papers and presentations considered game elements to enhance interaction with geospatial technologies, and, on the other when the keynote speaker Prof. Daniel Sui highlighted the geogames field as one of the future trends of GIScience.

All this positive outcomes are just the initial considerations for the next workshop on geogames and geoplay.
Workshop website with papers and presentations: http://www.geogames-team.org/agile2017/