Kingdom of the Knights: Evaluation of a Seamlessly Augmented Toy Environment for Playful Learning Steve Hinske Institute for Pervasive Computing Department of Computer Science ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland steve.hinske@inf.ethz.ch Ubiquitous technologies offer new opportunities for digitally augmenting children's toys and play experiences. A key question is how augmented toy environments affect children's playful learning, and whether this differs from non-augmented play environments. This paper presents preliminary results of a user study we conducted to evaluate an augmented toy environment that we built the Augmented Knights Castle in terms of fun and storytelling, particularly when compared with an identical, non-augmented version. All sessions were observed, video-recorded and further feedback was elicited through small group interviews and questionnaires. Findings suggest ways in which digitally augmented play environments promote different kinds of activity from an equivalent non-augmented play environment.