Help and support
Help and support is a non-pattern concerns the support of players or their ability to ask for help.
It can be
- accessed through the game interface,
- offered by a human moderator.
Help and support might concern the revealing of a game information, the obtaining of a game object etc. In group games it might support players who are behind so as to balance the level of ability of different players.
A penalty might be accompanying the provision of Help and support, for example a drop in score. This is useful in cases were player want to correct a previous mistake. Another option might be to incorporate it in a system of exchange or other kinds of economic transactions.
This pattern is attractive for location-based mobile games are used in a learning context.