Please bare with me. I am a developer, and I know a fair bit about 3D, but I am a novice when it comes to games, so I might not always be using the right terminology.

I am looking for an open-source geo-location/adventure game engine/designer software with the following properties, if such a thing exists:

• An interface that can be used by a designer (non programmer) to create the game: create a map, position items on it, set the various course of action the player can choose, etc.
• The player geo-location should be able to trigger events in the game;
• At each location, the player would be presented with multimedia material (a combination of text, images, video and/or audio track). User input should be possible to allow the player to answer riddles.
• Ideally, there should be some handles that would allow a developer to add more sophisticated parts to the game. Let's say that for a specific location I don't want to present a static element like an image or some text, but something more complex like a compass the player can use to help him find a hidden treasure, or buttons he has to press in a specific sequence to unlock something.
• The resulting game should be compatible with iOS and Android.

Does such a thing exist?

Game engines are not related to Game Design. Moving you to a more appropriate forum.

Geo-location usually refers to locations in the real-world, like GPS data. Are you talking about using GPS data and real-world map data for your game?

But then you talk about "creating a map", which makes it sound like you don't want actual real-world map data, but want a fictional game world that you create?

Does such a thing exist?

Not really, no. There doesn't exist a engine that is perfectly designed for your specific game idea. Game engines are usually designed specifically for one specific game that has already been made (e.g. Halo's game engine, used only to make Halo), or designed for specific genres (e.g. an RPG maker or HL2's Source engine), or else designed very broadly (e.g. Unity Engine, Unreal Engine, Construct 2, or GameMaker).

At some point in the process, you'll be required to write game logic. You either need to already know programming, be willing to learn how to program, or pay others to program for you.

Maybe Game Maker or Construct 2 covers your needs close enough? It'll still require work. Game development is more than just the fun parts.

Have you already tried out Adventure Game Engine?

Hi Servant of the Lord!

Yes, I am talking about a real-world map with GPS data. Instead of talking about creating a map, I should have said positioning elements of the game on a map. It would have been more accurate.

I had a look at the documentation of Adventure Game Engine. At first, I had a good impression, but after a second thought, I have been wondering whether this tool would be overkill, since all I want to do would be to present texts, quizzes, images, audio tracks, and/or videos when the player enters specified zones on the map.

I understand that some programming might be necessary for some parts of the game, but I would like to find a way to minimize that so that scenarists can design good parts of the game without the need of a developer.

Thanks for the suggestions!

P.S. Game Engine is maybe not what I meant then... I meant a game design software that can then run what you have designed.

Yes, I am talking about a real-world map with GPS data.

I know many games do that, but I'm not aware of any game SDKs that support that out-of-the-box without requiring programming.

I am a developer, so I don't mind having to code. What I would like to avoid is having to code for every game course or game board (I am not sure what is the right terminology here). If I can code something generic without reinventing the wheel that can be used by a game scenarist to design the game as he wants, then it solves my problem.

What you look for does not exists out-of-the-box, but has to be put together by multiple parts.

You will need to take the generic engines and tools available, and build your own custom tools and workflow for your particular game and dev team.

They then use those tools and workflows to produce content for your game.

That is how any game is done.

You might want to take a look at Unity as a base, since they have lots of plugins in their plugin store, with geolocation being one of them.

It also has the advantage of running on both ios and android. (not a trivial thing to get to work well)

Some (or a lot of) assembly required.

Unity will feel like overkill. But the reason I mention it is because of its big ecosystem of middleware. The problem with services like maps and geolocation is that the APIs differ a lot from platform to platform. So you are probably helped by using some kind of middleware to not have to re-implement these parts for each platform.

Android and iOS is also two very different platforms to start with, making writing cross platform apps that work well for both, non-trivial. Again a good reason to use some framework like Unity were these problems are closer to being solved.

But you will not find any single package where all your problems are solved.

Yes, I am talking about a real-world map with GPS data. Instead of talking about creating a map, I should have said positioning elements of the game on a map. It would have been more accurate.

Ah, so you are probably writing about augmented reality games.

Something where you run around in real life, and your virtual object (GPS phone with camera, Google Glass, etc) adds the virtual items into the real world.

There are several existing tools for that.

Thanks Olof for your feedback! Actually, the idea of what I want to do emerged during a hackathon. It is funny because we did try using Unity, however, it was my first time using Unity, and the learning curve is quite steep, so I was looking for something simpler. But you might be right.I might have an easy to implement solution if I choose the right plugins.