Information awareness
The pattern refers whether and how much information will be concealed from or revealed to the players by the game.
Information that is hidden can be disclosed to players when certain conditions are met.
In this pattern, information concerns the state of the game (and not, say, the answer to a puzzle). An example is the current location of the opponents.
In multiplayer games information awareness can regulate the balance of cooperation and competition between players.
In a location-based mobile game there exists the possibility to acquire information just by proximity. One can watch or listen to other players who are in the same space. Information might be accidentally disclosed simply by being near enough to hear a control sound from another player's device. The same could happen on purpose as part of a bluff. Players, who are aware that the opponents can watch them, act or talk in a way that misleads the opponents.
Players can use their game related smartphones or their personal phones to coordinate and exchange information, extending or overriding channels of information offered by the game.
Information might concern the actions of players, their current status (e.g. score), their position in the physical space etc. In the last example information might be regulated by the application of the fog of war pattern.