'Location based games' are games that are not played behind your computer screen but played in the real world. You walk through the real world in order to play the game. You use your mobile phone to communicate and locate other players. The first successful game in this genre was 'botfighters' from itsalive.com, a swedish company. The goal of the game was to find the other players by going through the city and do an area scan from time to time. Sms was used to interact with the gaming menu and give commands. Onces you were close to another player and did a scan you got an sms back that said that player x was in your neighbourhood. Then you could shoot him and scored. Done that, you should get out of that area as soon as possible otherwise you would be shot yourself. That way people crossed through the landscape in search for other players and where motivated to get the highest score. Now, this game was pretty basic, and successful too. But I think there are other interesting concepts possible. For instance wouldn't it be interesting if the game would motivate you to really meet face-to-face the other players and maybe team up, create groups and meet other groups for physical contact games. Or a game where you start playing in the streets and the winners al get a trip to some island to shine in a reality show where the final battle is fought out. I see lots of possibilities here. What do you ladies think about this? Somebody already thought up some interesting games that could be played this way? Best Regards, Marc De Mesel [edited by - MarcDM on November 22, 2003 7:53:52 PM]

That sounds really cool. The only problem is it appeals to a small ammount of people. First off, it must be for a mobile device with internet access to work. That limits you to people who have Centrino notebooks or cell phones/PDA-phone combos. Even fewer of them are probably willing to walk around and do it. However, I would play one of those games if I could. You could have some sort of duel game, where when in range, you could duel someone within range. However, some wireless devices aren't that fast. I think in a few years, this type of game could become a real hit, but cell phone or wireless technology needs to get a little more advanced first.
EDIT: Fixed some typing mistakes.

Scott Simontis
e-mail:ageofscott@comcast.net
AIM:ssimontis

[edited by - sSimontis on November 22, 2003 9:01:23 PM]

quote: Original post by sSimontis
You could have some sort of duel game, where when in range, you could duel someone within range. However, some wireless devices aren''t that fast. I think in a few years, this type of game coulc become a real hit, but cell phone or wireless technology needs to get a little more advanced first.

N-Gage.

The concept is one with a lot of potential and has begun to be shown in some media, an example would the Megaman NT series on gameboy which had a similar idea going on in game.

Its the kind of game that would work well in an evolving game environment such as the kind found in collectable card games like magic. But to work properly would require specilized hardware designed specifically for the game.

The main draw back is the high development cost, the establishment of the nessary infrustacture and security concerns.

But assuming a company could overcome all these, I think it would be major hit and insainly popular. Altough its an idea that is still won''t be possible to implement for another 5 ot 10 years.

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Chaos Factor Design Document

quote: Original post by OrangyTang

quote: Original post by sSimontis
You could have some sort of duel game, where when in range, you could duel someone within range. However, some wireless devices aren''t that fast. I think in a few years, this type of game coulc become a real hit, but cell phone or wireless technology needs to get a little more advanced first.

N-Gage.

N-Gage is a good answer, but I don''t know of anyone who has one. I have also heard lots of negative feedback on it. That would be a choice, but the mobile platform needs to become more widespread.

Scott Simontis
e-mail:ageofscott@comcast.net
AIM:ssimontis

quote: Original post by sSimontis
but I don''t know of anyone who has one. I have also heard lots of negative feedback on it. That would be a choice, but the mobile platform needs to become more widespread.

Now you''re just picking at the implementation details While I don''t think the N-Gage in itself is a good gaming platform (and certainly wouldn''t buy one) the idea is sound and almost exactly like you''re suggesting - short range multiplayer games on a mobile device.

I''d love for something like this to take off, but it has to get mass market acceptance first. If that means invading the market though stealth tactics (like sneaking on as an added-extra to mobile phones) then so be it. The sad fact is that although I know plenty of people with a GBA, if anyone over the age of about 13 gets one out in a public place you get funny looks. Even more so if you happen to be playing a link game with someone else.

You guys don't get it. Fuck n-gage, fuck pads pods and pets. The game botfighters is played through SMS. Sms is a widely popular communication system that is available to every cell phone owner in the world (correct?).

So to interact with the gaming interface and the other players you only use phone and sms, because they are widely available. With only these technologies you can already create some cool stuff, I think. You don't need the advanced colorfull displays or wap, gprs or some other fancy technology to come. It would made it easier to interact with other players and the gaming interace but hey, you can make the sms or phone commands easy too, no?

So, what kind of game could you create with these limitations? Let's do some brainstorming together.

"Gang Wars": objective: Conquering land, your city. Every square 100 meters can be owned by somebody. You own it by claiming it (sending an sms). You know the number of the location by doing a scan of the area. You do this by sending an scan sms. You will get an sms back telling you whether or not the land has been claimed already and if so, by who. You will get the possibility to challenge that player. He or she will receive an sms and you two will meet some place to fight out the duel! If you win, the land is yours.

You can also team up in groups and create a gang. If you are a gang you can show up on the duel in a group. Clans are dangerous! Clans are powerfull! But clans need a leader, a good one, to hold them together.

.... voila, you guys can finish this story

next one

"SMS Lovers" Goal of the game: Becoming the best sms seducer of your city. You do a scan to see who's in your neighbourhood. You can send them sms messages and your goal is to seduce these people into a date. Once they say, yes!!!!! you score. Players can only say yes when somebody else said yes to them. So you can not constantly say yes. You can only have one date with one player. So you can't give eachother credit. No, you really have to look for as much people as possible and get their yes, which won't be easy as everybody knows that getting a yes is more difficult then giving a yes.

mmm... needs still some work, but you get the idea.

Now, it's your turn guys. Help me creating these money making machines!

[edited by - MarcDM on November 23, 2003 8:38:29 AM]

Comon guys, I chalenge you to think up some good game concepts.

Well, I think some ideas should be pretty obvious.

Anyone ever heard of Diplomacy ?

No ? Well, you better go and google it because it''s one of those classic games that any self respecting designer should know (at least, non computing game designer).

If you do, the conversion to SMS would be pretty simple.
Instead of writing your orders on a piece of paper, you send them on an SMS. d''oh !
To converse with your fellow players, you SMS them, too (not giving people''s real numbers, I could see that being easily abused).
Imagine now, that you combine your "gangwars" concept with the concept of Diplomacy ? How cool would that be ?
Instead of playing on the map of Europe, you play in your town, trying to conquer each borough and district by sending "troops" and installing fortress, forming alliances and launching surprise attacks.
If you want to keep the element of player "real life involvement", you could simply make it so that when they want to move a troop or do something in a particular place, they have to actually go there. Unless they have acquired some special means of communication ingame.

In fact, I think a lot of play by email games could simply be played thourgh SMS instead. The only limitation is the number of SMS that would be needed to send to players in order for them to keep things up to date.
Maybe have a website that shows the status of the game ? But then you lose the whole idea of having people wlaking around INTERACTING with each other... mmmh.

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Inspiring post ahw,

I've been thinking about your proposal. I know diplomacy and like it very much.
I would take the players as representations of the armies. You are an army.
I would keep the 'gang' idea as main driver but would incorporate the negotiating part from diplomacy into it.


So, you do a scan of the area, you see that it belongs to 'Kevin' who is part of 'The Watford Woesies' gang. You see that this gang controls almost all the areas around it. But another gang, " Beasty Girls" controls some other parts. (The sms you get back says to you who owns the area you are in and tells who owns the areas surrounding the area you are in. So you get 1 center, one to the left, one to the right, one top-left, one top, etc...)


Now, you can challenge Kevin. When you challenge him he gets an sms saying there is an invader who wants to dual him. The defender, Kevin, can take on the dual or retreat to another zone of his gang. For that the zone where he retreats to, just like in Diplomacy, should be free of any other gang members. Duals will take place once a week, every sunday morning 10 o'clock, they take place. (Here you have the 'in turns' aspect of Diplomacy) (just picked a time where most people are free)

If the defender takes on the dual he or she will have to send an sms to the challenger saying he accepts the dual. The attacker decides where the dual takes place and sends an sms to the defender telling him or her the exact adres.

The dual is won if you turn up on the place of appointment with more people than the other party. (the numbers game of diplomacy, when equal the defender stays) So a gang can turn up with much more members. But if they fight on different fronts they will have to split up their army of players. Also, on the place of the dual a member of a gang can run over to the other party.


Well, that's it for now! Pretty happy about the result I must say. It still needs a lot of work but I see a good game here. Maybe the duals should be more interesting than just showing up, counting the members of each team and sending the winner through to the game by sms. Maybe the duals can be some sort of physical games.

Also what happens when you lose, you only lose your area or you lose your life? And if you lose your life how can you get back into the game? Maybe a gang can only be as big as the number of areas it has under its control?

Anyway, thx a lot for the inspiration ahw. It's very much appreciated. I love to think along and design with other people.

Best Regards,
Marc

[edited by - MarcDM on November 27, 2003 5:38:32 PM]