Hot Books is designed to bring attention to library books. The game was inspired by the unused, lost and forgotten book in UC Berkeley's Doe Library. This game is social, where players attach books to one another, attempting to gain as many points as possible.

This game was designed by Nick Reid, durring Greg Niemeyer's Game Design class at UC Berkeley.

Overview of the Game

Hot Books is a game about attaching books to players. Once a book has been attached to a player, the game requires player to find the book and search it to find the key word that will allow the player to detach the book. Relationships with books are created as players find books they like, and an identity for the book emerges as players exchange the books. Hot Books is a game that is based in the internet, yet also augments the reality of a brick and mortar library.

A walk-through of the core game play looks like this:

• Player A goes to the library.
• Player A finds a book, enters the book's information into the Hot Books website, and attaches the book to player B.
• Player A thereby gains a point and Player B loses one point.
• Player B goes to the library where the book is located, and finds the book.
• Player B detaches the book by entering the book's key. This action then allows Player B to attach the book to any other player.

The interactions in Hot Books are focused on books. The core mechanic of the game is the search for a book in a library. Sometimes the searching is defensive, as when a player is trying to find a book so they can detach it. At other times, the searching is proactive, as when players are looking to see if they can find a book that would be fun to attach to another player. In either case, the main focus of the game is the search for books.

The key required for detaching a book from a player's profile ensures that the player has to actually find the book. This is an essential part of the game play because it makes players open the book, and look through it to find a predetermined key word. Hot Books would not work at all without some form of key in the system. Using a specific word from the book is an ideal form of key because it does not physically change the books in any way.

After a player finds a book, the game takes on the attributes of the childhood game of "Hot Potato." In order to gain points (and avoid losing points), players have to pass the book back and forth like a hot potato. This is the positive feed back loop that amplifies the interactions and keeps the books in motion.

To play the game, each player and each book develops an internet "profile" consisting only of specific information. The profile design was inspired by the check-out card found inside the front cover of a library book, where only the due date is visible. In Hot Books, each row on a player or book's profile represents an interaction that occurred in the game. Each row includes the time the interaction happened and a link to the other relevant parties in the interaction. In the player's profile, the only available information about the player is the books that have been or currently are attached to the player's profile. In each book's profile there is the book's title and call number and then a list of every player that the book has been attached to.

Players gain points in such a way as to create an economy of books that makes Hot Books seem like a balancing act. The balancing act is between the number of books a player has attached to other players versus the number of books that have been attached to the player by others. Achieving a high score requires a player to find a lot of books and attach them to other players, as well as to go back into the stacks and lookfor books that have been attached to him. A player might find that he likes a book that is on his profile and may choose to leave it and select a different book to attach to another player.

Hot Books defines a game space that is neither real nor virtual, but ties both the real and virtual together so that the game cannot exist without both spaces. Hot Books exists most prominently as a web site that at first seems like another community-oriented web site. Unlike internet-based games, websites and alternate reality games, however, Hot Books is utterly dependant on the real world because the primary objects that players interact with are physical, and the game cannot be played without a specific library to use as a site for the game.

By locating the game in a brick and mortar library, the game utilizes the organic, physical site of the library, thereby making the opportunity to play the game special, and yet, ironically, artificially makes the library into a special arena.

The critical moment of the game occurs when the real world and digital space no longer coincide, which happens when a book is lost in the library. This creates an impossible situation for the player, since the player must be able to find the book in order to obtain the key to detach it. If the player cannot find the book, then the play of passing the books stops. This critical moment, and the dilemma it present when the player cannot find the book, illustrates the fragility of the physical world of books.