Location-based game
Encyclopedia
A location-based game is one in which the game play somehow evolves and progresses via a player's location. Thus, location-based games almost always support some kind of localization technology, for example by using satellite positioning like GPS.
"Urban gaming" or "Street Games" are typically multi-player location-based games played out on city streets and built up urban environments.
Current research trends are looking to other embedded mobile technologies such as Near Field Communication
, Bluetooth
, and UWB
. Poor technology performance in urban areas has led some location-based games to incorporate disconnectivity as a gameplay asset.
elements have become important elements to enabling locative media
to progress gameplay.
Geocaching
is the most prominent example with a large community. It is nominally a single-player kind of treasure hunt which is usually played using hand-held GPS receivers with user-hidden boxes.
GeoCaching, Combat and Caching are just some of the games that are held under active urban games network Encounter
. They have various rules that single them out from similar games. The most noticeable differences are time limitations to every game, team-play is more common and the fact that anyone can be an organizer.
GeoCheckpointing is a worldwide outdoor game where the participants use a GPS device or a map to find control points called GeoCheckpoints. The purpose of every GeoCheckpoint is to lead the participants to places which are worth to visit. Since the GeoCheckpoints are clearly visible, it is possible to find them without long searching so the players can visit more interesting places during single trip comparing to other location-based games. It is also more environment-friendly because the seekers do not need to dig in the ground or in the walls in order to find the GeoCheckpoints.
Tourality is a real life
scavenger hunt GPS game for smartphones. The challenge of the multiplayer game is to reach geographically defined spots by running, biking or driving before others in realtime
. Game spots, points of interest and so called 'game sets' (playing fields) can be created with Google Maps
by users. This user-generated content
is the basis for outdoor games but it is also possible to play automatically generated game sets. Tourality offers a singleplayer and two multiplayer (player vs. player and team vs. team) modes. By reaching goodie spots the players can collect gold which they can than use for certain gadgets within the game. Currently the game is available as an app for Android and versions for other platforms are announced.
ARIS is a mobile game authoring platform for iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. Current games range from "Dow Day," a location-based interactive documentary game about protests in Madison,WI to "STEEL" which challenges players to retrieve virtual ore from various locations and deliver them to a smelting shop for processing. ARIS is being used as a design and prototyping platform by a number of institutions such as the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian according to the project's website.
Parallel Kingdom
is the first GPS-based MMORPG for iPhones and Google Android phones. The game uses the GPS capabilities of smartphones to center the game map on the player's actual location. The player then has roughly a 1/3 mile radius that can be explored by tapping on the screen of the device. The player can move longer distances by moving in real life and using the "Relocate" button to recenter the game map on their current GPS location. Real life landmarks such as parks, airports, and mountains have gameplay implications by spawning different objects on the game map. Parallel Kingdom is available globally, for free, and currently has over 750,000 players according to the game's online discussion forum.
Blackbeard's Treasure' is a treasure hunting game for iPhone. The player is pirate who seeks and buries treasures, might gain experience, level and items. Those will allow him to solve simple quests or challenge other players in real time duel. Players can also create a "piratehood" with facebook fiends and trade items on black markets.
Torpedo Bay uses the area in and around you to avoid being killed by various ocean warships (carriers etc.) To survive, you must move in your neighborhood to get more ammunition and health to stay alive. GPS enabled mobile handsets allow for real time location
information. This game is available on Boost Mobile
and Nextel in the USA since 2005 and also published by Blister Entertainment.
Sidewalk Squirrel is a single player location based game that allows anyone to create a gameboard in any neighborhood. Gameboards consist of a map, acorns, bones, a start and finish flag and are created on http://www.SidewalkSquirrel.com or using the Sidewalk Squirrel game. To play, individuals become a squirrel within a gameboard using GPS, Windows Mobile and the Sidewalk Squirrel game. The object of the game is to run the gameboard course picking up acorns and bones for points while avoiding attacking dogs (life as a squirrel). Dogs are also satisfied when given collected bones. Sidewalk Squirrel is Sneaker Entertainment's debut game.
The Journey (part 1 + 2) are mobile, location based adventure games developed by Mopius, which run on standard Symbian OS-phones. They combine the virtual world of a detective with the real surroundings of the player, while he is playing the game. The game is based on cell IDs of the mobile network, which has the advantage that no additional hardware like GPS receivers is required and that playing the game is free (no data traffic or location acquisition costs). As the virtual world is built dynamically during each game, The Journey can be played anywhere on the world and does not need prior setup. The first game was released as an open source game through the GPL-license. Both games have already been downloaded more than 100.000 times since their release in 2004 (state: 2007).
Pac-Manhattan
uses the area in and around Washington Square Park
to play a real live version of Pacman. In Pac-Manhattan players communicate their position via mobile phone
s.
WalkExplorer lets people find and download walks and walk-based games that help people explore the environment around them using their mobile phone
s.
Uncle Roy All Around You
and Can You See Me Now?
, produced by Brighton based Blast Theory and the Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham University, are examples for of mixed reality
and locative media
breaking the arts/science/computer games barrier. Their games implement GPS via PDA
s.
Wherigo
(Where I Go) is "an adventure game construction set for the real world" currently available for Garmin Colorado and GPS-enabled Pocket PCs. It uses user-developed content (called a "cartridge") which is mostly location-dependent, but cartridges can be built to be played anywhere. The Wherigo web site is maintained by Groundspeak, the same company that maintains geocaching.com.
BotFighters
, developed by It's Alive! and released in 2000, was one of the first location-based games on mobile phones.
Situationist
encourages users to engage in random events in their everyday lives. Released in 2011 by Turned On Digital, Situationist alerts users when someone else using the app is nearby and presents them with a situation such as "compliment me on my haircut" or "high five me."
Swordfish uses the area in and around you to go fishing for virtual swordfish. GPS enabled mobile handsets allow for real time location
information where the swordfish are in your neighborhood. This game has been available since 2004 on Bell Mobility
Canada and is available on Boost Mobile
and Nextel in the USA. Swordfish won the Excellence in Gaming category at the 2005 Canadian New Media Association Awards. Written in Java ME
, the game is published by Calgary
, Canada based Blister Entertainment (a wholly owned company of KnowledgeWhere Inc.)
Gbanga Famiglia
is a mixed reality
, mobile phone
game published on the Gbanga
platform. Players takeover as many establishments as possible as part of a Mafia Famiglia. Players must first locate establishments whilst walking around the city before they can be taken-over. Establishments are virtual however they are linked to real-world bars and nightclubs. A successful take-over depends on the Famiglia's power, determined by the number of members and the cash total for special items collected.
My Grove is a location-based game for the iPhone. Players compete to eliminate pollution in their city by planting trees all around town. The player that harvests the most fruit at a location becomes the "Top Producer", while the player that eliminates the most CO2 per locale (city, county, state, nation) becomes the carbon conquerer. Users can level up to unlock special types of seeds and power ups as well.
Geo Wars' is a location-based MMO game for Android that uses Google maps as its playing field. Players hire drug dealers and place them on the map to earn money and experience. The closer a dealer is to their HQ, the more money they earn when they collect. They can also attack enemies, maintain grow-ops, and buy items from the black market. Gangs and city chat can be used to form strategies and alliances. The longer they can keep dealers on the streets without being killed, the more money they make and the higher they rank.
MapAttack! is a real-time location-based game for iPhone and Android that uses Google Maps as its playing field. It is loosely based on Risk and Pac-Man in that players collect coins of different values placed inside small geofences on the gameboard. The team with the most points wins. The game was built on the real-time location streaming API built by location platform Geoloqi. It was created as a server test for the Geoloqi platform and has been played in Portland, Oregon and remotely in Sweden. The geofences have an accuracy of 5–9 meters and operates in real-time due to a socket server implementation on the back end.
TrezrHunt is a real-time location-based game that is now available for Symbian phones and soon for iPhones. The game can be played anywhere with a selectable playing area size. In TrezrHunt you control the game character, Eddie, by moving yourself outdoors. Run north, Eddie moves up. Run east, Eddie moves right. Move around avoiding ghosts, collect jewels, find treasures and trap ghosts to earn points. In addition, you are given mini challenges to score bonus points.
Bjong is an outdoors game available to iPhones and Symbian phones. In Bjong, the game character, Bjong snail, follows your movement. Move right, snail moves right. Move left, snail moves left. In this Pong-inspired game you hit the balls and keep them in the play, collect yummies and avoid poison berries to earn points. You may also earn more points by running. You can select difficulty level, size of the game area and number of balls. The game can be played with a very small area.
GPS receivers (including the Geko 201, Geko 301, GPS 60, eTrex Vista C, and GPSMAP 76CS) include the geolocation games Geko Smak, Memory Race, Virtual Maze and Nibbons.
, Manhunt, and Capture the Flag
. Students at other American universities have formed similar organizations, such as the Zombie Outbreak Management Facilitation Group at Cornell College
.
"Urban gaming" or "Street Games" are typically multi-player location-based games played out on city streets and built up urban environments.
Current research trends are looking to other embedded mobile technologies such as Near Field Communication
Near Field Communication
Near field communication, or NFC, allows for simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in proximity to each other, usually by no more than a few centimeters. It is expected to become a widely used system for making payments by smartphone in the United States...
, Bluetooth
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
, and UWB
Ultra-wideband
Ultra-wideband is a radio technology that can be used at very low energy levels for short-range high-bandwidth communications by using a large portion of the radio spectrum. UWB has traditional applications in non-cooperative radar imaging...
. Poor technology performance in urban areas has led some location-based games to incorporate disconnectivity as a gameplay asset.
Examples of location-based games
Some games only last for a certain amount of time, while others can be played any time. Some are location-dependent while others can be played anywhere. NarrativeNarrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
elements have become important elements to enabling locative media
Locative media
Locative media or Location-based media are media of communication functionally bound to a location. The physical implementation of locative media however is not bound to the same location to which the content refers....
to progress gameplay.
Geocaching
Geocaching
Geocaching is an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world....
is the most prominent example with a large community. It is nominally a single-player kind of treasure hunt which is usually played using hand-held GPS receivers with user-hidden boxes.
GeoCaching, Combat and Caching are just some of the games that are held under active urban games network Encounter
Encounter (game)
Encounter is an international network of active urban games.Also known as "Схватка" – the game that gave birth to this project.- Project history :...
. They have various rules that single them out from similar games. The most noticeable differences are time limitations to every game, team-play is more common and the fact that anyone can be an organizer.
GeoCheckpointing is a worldwide outdoor game where the participants use a GPS device or a map to find control points called GeoCheckpoints. The purpose of every GeoCheckpoint is to lead the participants to places which are worth to visit. Since the GeoCheckpoints are clearly visible, it is possible to find them without long searching so the players can visit more interesting places during single trip comparing to other location-based games. It is also more environment-friendly because the seekers do not need to dig in the ground or in the walls in order to find the GeoCheckpoints.
Tourality is a real life
Real life
Real life is a term usually used to denote actual human life lived by real people in contrast with the lives of fictional or fantasy characters.-Usage online and in fiction:On the Internet, "real life" refers to life in the real world...
scavenger hunt GPS game for smartphones. The challenge of the multiplayer game is to reach geographically defined spots by running, biking or driving before others in realtime
Real-time (media)
Real time within the media is a method of narratology wherein events are portrayed at the same rate that the audience experiences them. For example, if a movie told in real-time is two hours long, then the plot of that movie covers two hours of fictional time...
. Game spots, points of interest and so called 'game sets' (playing fields) can be created with Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
by users. This user-generated content
User-generated content
User generated content covers a range of media content available in a range of modern communications technologies. It entered mainstream usage during 2005 having arisen in web publishing and new media content production circles...
is the basis for outdoor games but it is also possible to play automatically generated game sets. Tourality offers a singleplayer and two multiplayer (player vs. player and team vs. team) modes. By reaching goodie spots the players can collect gold which they can than use for certain gadgets within the game. Currently the game is available as an app for Android and versions for other platforms are announced.
ARIS is a mobile game authoring platform for iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. Current games range from "Dow Day," a location-based interactive documentary game about protests in Madison,WI to "STEEL" which challenges players to retrieve virtual ore from various locations and deliver them to a smelting shop for processing. ARIS is being used as a design and prototyping platform by a number of institutions such as the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian according to the project's website.
Parallel Kingdom
Parallel Kingdom
Parallel Kingdom is a mobile, location based, massively multiplayer game that uses GPS location and Google Maps to place users in a virtual world. Parallel Kingdom is the first location based RPG for the iOS and Android platforms. The game was developed by PerBlue, a privately held mobile and...
is the first GPS-based MMORPG for iPhones and Google Android phones. The game uses the GPS capabilities of smartphones to center the game map on the player's actual location. The player then has roughly a 1/3 mile radius that can be explored by tapping on the screen of the device. The player can move longer distances by moving in real life and using the "Relocate" button to recenter the game map on their current GPS location. Real life landmarks such as parks, airports, and mountains have gameplay implications by spawning different objects on the game map. Parallel Kingdom is available globally, for free, and currently has over 750,000 players according to the game's online discussion forum.
Blackbeard's Treasure' is a treasure hunting game for iPhone. The player is pirate who seeks and buries treasures, might gain experience, level and items. Those will allow him to solve simple quests or challenge other players in real time duel. Players can also create a "piratehood" with facebook fiends and trade items on black markets.
Torpedo Bay uses the area in and around you to avoid being killed by various ocean warships (carriers etc.) To survive, you must move in your neighborhood to get more ammunition and health to stay alive. GPS enabled mobile handsets allow for real time location
Location (geography)
The terms location and place in geography are used to identify a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term 'location' generally implies a higher degree of can certainty than "place" which often has an ambiguous boundary relying more on human/social attributes of place identity...
information. This game is available on Boost Mobile
Boost Mobile
Boost Mobile is a brand of wireless prepay service run by Sprint Nextel, operating within the Sprint Prepaid Group along with Virgin Mobile USA, Assurance Wireless, and payLo by Virgin Mobile. Boost Mobile uses GSMand iDEN networks...
and Nextel in the USA since 2005 and also published by Blister Entertainment.
Sidewalk Squirrel is a single player location based game that allows anyone to create a gameboard in any neighborhood. Gameboards consist of a map, acorns, bones, a start and finish flag and are created on http://www.SidewalkSquirrel.com or using the Sidewalk Squirrel game. To play, individuals become a squirrel within a gameboard using GPS, Windows Mobile and the Sidewalk Squirrel game. The object of the game is to run the gameboard course picking up acorns and bones for points while avoiding attacking dogs (life as a squirrel). Dogs are also satisfied when given collected bones. Sidewalk Squirrel is Sneaker Entertainment's debut game.
The Journey (part 1 + 2) are mobile, location based adventure games developed by Mopius, which run on standard Symbian OS-phones. They combine the virtual world of a detective with the real surroundings of the player, while he is playing the game. The game is based on cell IDs of the mobile network, which has the advantage that no additional hardware like GPS receivers is required and that playing the game is free (no data traffic or location acquisition costs). As the virtual world is built dynamically during each game, The Journey can be played anywhere on the world and does not need prior setup. The first game was released as an open source game through the GPL-license. Both games have already been downloaded more than 100.000 times since their release in 2004 (state: 2007).
Pac-Manhattan
Pac-Manhattan
Pac-Manhattan is a real-life version of Pac-Man created in 2004 and covered by the New York Times that year. It was invented by graduate students at the Interactive Telecommunications Program in the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University...
uses the area in and around Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
to play a real live version of Pacman. In Pac-Manhattan players communicate their position via mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s.
WalkExplorer lets people find and download walks and walk-based games that help people explore the environment around them using their mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s.
Uncle Roy All Around You
Uncle Roy All Around You
Uncle Roy All Around You is an urban game by Blast Theory from 2003. Street Players use handheld computers to search for Uncle Roy using the map and incoming messages to move through the city. Online Players cruise through a virtual map of the same area, searching for Street Players to help them...
and Can You See Me Now?
Can You See Me Now?
Can You See Me Now? is an urban chase game developed by and the . Performers on the streets of a city use handheld computers, GPS and walkie talkies to chase online players who move their avatars through a virtual model of the same town....
, produced by Brighton based Blast Theory and the Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham University, are examples for of mixed reality
Mixed reality
Mixed reality refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time...
and locative media
Locative media
Locative media or Location-based media are media of communication functionally bound to a location. The physical implementation of locative media however is not bound to the same location to which the content refers....
breaking the arts/science/computer games barrier. Their games implement GPS via PDA
PDA
A PDA is most commonly a Personal digital assistant, also known as a Personal data assistant, a mobile electronic device.PDA may also refer to:In science, medicine and technology:...
s.
Wherigo
Wherigo
Wherigo is a GPS based activity that can be played outdoors which was created by Groundspeak. A simple description is a mix between an adventure game and a geocache search....
(Where I Go) is "an adventure game construction set for the real world" currently available for Garmin Colorado and GPS-enabled Pocket PCs. It uses user-developed content (called a "cartridge") which is mostly location-dependent, but cartridges can be built to be played anywhere. The Wherigo web site is maintained by Groundspeak, the same company that maintains geocaching.com.
BotFighters
BotFighters
BotFighters is a mobile game developed by It's Alive!, mainly known because it was one of the world's first mobile games to take advantage of location-based services...
, developed by It's Alive! and released in 2000, was one of the first location-based games on mobile phones.
Situationist
Situationist
The Situationist International was an internationalist European revolutionary group founded in 1957, and which reached its peak of influence in the general strike of May 1968 in France....
encourages users to engage in random events in their everyday lives. Released in 2011 by Turned On Digital, Situationist alerts users when someone else using the app is nearby and presents them with a situation such as "compliment me on my haircut" or "high five me."
Swordfish uses the area in and around you to go fishing for virtual swordfish. GPS enabled mobile handsets allow for real time location
Location (geography)
The terms location and place in geography are used to identify a point or an area on the Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term 'location' generally implies a higher degree of can certainty than "place" which often has an ambiguous boundary relying more on human/social attributes of place identity...
information where the swordfish are in your neighborhood. This game has been available since 2004 on Bell Mobility
Bell Mobility
Bell Mobility is a CDMA and HSPA+ based wireless network and the division of Bell Canada which sells wireless services in Canada...
Canada and is available on Boost Mobile
Boost Mobile
Boost Mobile is a brand of wireless prepay service run by Sprint Nextel, operating within the Sprint Prepaid Group along with Virgin Mobile USA, Assurance Wireless, and payLo by Virgin Mobile. Boost Mobile uses GSMand iDEN networks...
and Nextel in the USA. Swordfish won the Excellence in Gaming category at the 2005 Canadian New Media Association Awards. Written in Java ME
Java Platform, Micro Edition
Java Platform, Micro Edition, or Java ME, is a Java platform designed for embedded systems . Target devices range from industrial controls to mobile phones and set-top boxes...
, the game is published by Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
, Canada based Blister Entertainment (a wholly owned company of KnowledgeWhere Inc.)
Gbanga Famiglia
Gbanga Famiglia
Gbanga Famiglia is a mixed reality, mobile phone game published on the Gbanga platform. Players take on the roles of Mafioso and can join an existing Mafia Famiglia or start their own. Players must first locate establishments whilst walking around the city before they can be taken-over....
is a mixed reality
Mixed reality
Mixed reality refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time...
, mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
game published on the Gbanga
Gbanga
Gbanga is a mixed reality, social gaming platform for mobile phones developed by Zurich-based startup, Millform AG. The platform runs on real-time locative media, developed in-house, which means that the gaming environment changes relative to the players real-world location...
platform. Players takeover as many establishments as possible as part of a Mafia Famiglia. Players must first locate establishments whilst walking around the city before they can be taken-over. Establishments are virtual however they are linked to real-world bars and nightclubs. A successful take-over depends on the Famiglia's power, determined by the number of members and the cash total for special items collected.
My Grove is a location-based game for the iPhone. Players compete to eliminate pollution in their city by planting trees all around town. The player that harvests the most fruit at a location becomes the "Top Producer", while the player that eliminates the most CO2 per locale (city, county, state, nation) becomes the carbon conquerer. Users can level up to unlock special types of seeds and power ups as well.
Geo Wars' is a location-based MMO game for Android that uses Google maps as its playing field. Players hire drug dealers and place them on the map to earn money and experience. The closer a dealer is to their HQ, the more money they earn when they collect. They can also attack enemies, maintain grow-ops, and buy items from the black market. Gangs and city chat can be used to form strategies and alliances. The longer they can keep dealers on the streets without being killed, the more money they make and the higher they rank.
MapAttack! is a real-time location-based game for iPhone and Android that uses Google Maps as its playing field. It is loosely based on Risk and Pac-Man in that players collect coins of different values placed inside small geofences on the gameboard. The team with the most points wins. The game was built on the real-time location streaming API built by location platform Geoloqi. It was created as a server test for the Geoloqi platform and has been played in Portland, Oregon and remotely in Sweden. The geofences have an accuracy of 5–9 meters and operates in real-time due to a socket server implementation on the back end.
TrezrHunt is a real-time location-based game that is now available for Symbian phones and soon for iPhones. The game can be played anywhere with a selectable playing area size. In TrezrHunt you control the game character, Eddie, by moving yourself outdoors. Run north, Eddie moves up. Run east, Eddie moves right. Move around avoiding ghosts, collect jewels, find treasures and trap ghosts to earn points. In addition, you are given mini challenges to score bonus points.
Bjong is an outdoors game available to iPhones and Symbian phones. In Bjong, the game character, Bjong snail, follows your movement. Move right, snail moves right. Move left, snail moves left. In this Pong-inspired game you hit the balls and keep them in the play, collect yummies and avoid poison berries to earn points. You may also earn more points by running. You can select difficulty level, size of the game area and number of balls. The game can be played with a very small area.
Garmin
Some of the GarminGarmin
Garmin Ltd. , incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, is the parent company of a group of companies founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao , that develops consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the Global Positioning System...
GPS receivers (including the Geko 201, Geko 301, GPS 60, eTrex Vista C, and GPSMAP 76CS) include the geolocation games Geko Smak, Memory Race, Virtual Maze and Nibbons.
Organized Team Games
FlagHunt is a fast paced tactical outdoor game, developed by TAZ, where teams compete against one another in catching virtual flags and treasures. Players can also place virtual traps for opponents. Players of a team choose either the role of a Flagger or a Hunter. Flaggers run the team's command centre with laptops and guide hunters to different targets. Hunters play outdoors, trying to catch the flags and find the treasures. Teams communicate using in-game text chat. The game can be played anywhere, with 2-4 teams, and up to 200 participants.Organized Urban Gaming
In 2006, Penn State students founded the Urban Gaming Club. The goal of the club is to provide location based games and Alternate Reality Games. Some of the games played by Penn State's UGC are Humans vs. ZombiesHumans vs. Zombies
Humans vs. Zombies is a live-action game predominately played at college campuses where players begin as Humans and try to survive in a story where Zombies have begun to rise from the dead. The ultimate goal of the game is for either all Humans to be turned into Zombies, or for the humans to...
, Manhunt, and Capture the Flag
Capture the flag
Capture the Flag is a traditional outdoor sport generally played by children, where two teams each have a flag and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base," and bring it safely back to their own base...
. Students at other American universities have formed similar organizations, such as the Zombie Outbreak Management Facilitation Group at Cornell College
Cornell College
Cornell College is a private liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Originally called the Iowa Conference Seminary, the school was founded in 1853 by Reverend Samuel M. Fellows...
.
See also
- Alternate Reality GameAlternate reality gameAn alternate reality game is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions....
- Encounter (game)Encounter (game)Encounter is an international network of active urban games.Also known as "Схватка" – the game that gave birth to this project.- Project history :...
- MMTRG
- Location-based serviceLocation-based serviceA Location-Based Service is an information or entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device....
- Sentient computingSentient computingSentient computing is a form of ubiquitous computing which uses sensors to perceive its environment and react accordingly. A common use of the sensors is to construct a world model which allows location-aware or context-aware applications to be constructed....
- Ubiquitous computingUbiquitous computingUbiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. In the course of ordinary activities, someone "using" ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems...
- ParkourParkourParkour is a method of movement focused on moving around obstacles with speed and efficiency. Originally developed in France, the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping...
- mscapeMscapeMscape is a mobile media gaming platform under development by Hewlett Packard that can be used to create location-based games. The Mscape platform is flexible. HP encourages developers to use Mscape to create not just games, but also informational guides to points of interest, imaginative stories...
, a location-based game platform.
External links
- GPS Real Racer racing game for Android system and iOS.
- GeoCheckpointing Outdoor game for GPS users.
- Bullerdiek, Sönke: Design and Evaluation of Pervasive Games, Thesis (de) 2006 - pdf
- Location-based mobile phone games - Aggregated list of location-based games from Paul Baron's IN-duce blog.
- Gamers turn cities into a battleground - article on urban gaming from New Scientist
- Pervasive games - gaming in physical space - Blog presenting research on pervasive games and location-based games
- Virtualpunk This runs on GPS enabled mobile phones or phones using an external bluetooth GPS
- Mscapes Mediascapes are games/digital experiences directly related to where you are.
- GPS Mission This runs on GPS enabled mobile phones.
- Tourality This multiplayer game runs on Java enabled mobile phones with GPS (internal or external).