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Location-based games invite players to have new forms of meaningful social interactions with others and provide opportunities for players to engage with their own neighbourhood’s public space. Earlier research on user requirements for such games have identified seven different activity types that have proven to initiate social interaction and capture real life exchanges for meaningful play-based social experiences. Yet, current understanding on what makes these games successful in such endeavours is still insufficient. This study furthers current understanding on the effects of location-based games for social interaction in local communities: it studies the forms of social interaction that the previously identified seven types of game activities elicit by analysing the nature and types of the exchanges they trigger. Based on this analysis, a design framework is proposed to 1) analyse existing location-based games and describe the forms of social interaction they trigger, and 2) help practitioners design new game activities that target specific forms of social interaction. This contributes to the enhancement of current understanding on the impact that these games can have in local communities, and on the way they can be better designed and used to promote social exchanges that are desired by players.

Making it work together can be challenging when various stakeholders are involved. Given the context of neighborhoods and cities specifically, stakeholders values and interests are not always aligned. In these settings, to construct long-term and sustaining participatory city-making projects, to make it work together, is demanding. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a design framework for inclusive and participatory city-making. This framework is inspired by the playable city perspective in that it endorses an open, exploratory, and interactive mindset of city actors. An extensive literature review on approaches taken for playful and participatory interventions in local communities provides the foundations for the framework. The review brings forward four pillars on which the framework is grounded and four activities for exploration of the design space for participatory city-making. A case study from The Hague (NL) is used to demonstrate how the framework can be applied to design and analyze processes in which city stakeholders together make it work. The case study analysis complements the framework with various research methods to support researchers, urban planners, and designers to engage with all city stakeholders to create playful and participatory interventions, which are inclusive and meaningful for the local community. The research contributions of this paper are the proposed framework and informed suggestions on how this framework in practice assists city stakeholders to together make it work.