Haphazard Journey by Starlight

Just realised how little I have a clear sense of the development of location-based games over the last few years...this spot here's going to be the place where I bring together everything I know about their history. Then over time I'll try and make something coherent out of it all!

A timeline will probably be the easiest way to start pulling all the threads together.
I've started putting together something very simple in a wiki - so that if anyone else chances across it - they can add and edit.....

http://lbgames.pbwiki.com/FrontPage

Precursors

Playground and Streetgames
http://www.streetplay.com/thegames/

LARPing...

Audio Tours

Related genres

Pervasive gaming

Augmented/Hybrid Reality

Early Location-based games

Geocaching

Development of Location-based games

Multiplayer

Collaborative

First large-scale Commercial Games

Mogi-Mogi

Botfighters

Supporting Technology

Development of GPS

GIS and Virtual Earths....

Growth of Mobile phones and handheld devices

Free Authoring Tools:
MobileBristol
Charles River City
Caerus
Create-a-scape
Mscapers

Brief history of hand-held gaming devices (not comprehensive):
http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/03/a-brief-history-of-handheld-video-games

The future

Future Location-based experiences by prof steve benford
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:LxOCCoOdEo4J:www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/jisctsw_05_01.pdf+history+of+location-based+gaming&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=96

Five key developments will define the new terrain of context-aware gaming:
1. Anyone can play these new games. When games are built around existing
elements there won’t be a need to learn arbitrary controls before play-
ing, and these experiences will reach a broader swath of the general
population than any video game ever has.
2. Gaming will occur anywhere, anytime, with anything. Games that bleed
into the real world will be played anywhere and everywhere, and for-
merly non-gaming objects (such as a crosswalk) will suddenly take on
dual identities.
3. Game space and “real” space will become one. When everyday actions,
like driving to work or buying items at the supermarket, begin to affect
the state of a game, players will begin to see spaces in the real world
both for their traditional purposes and their roles in game stories.
4. Other players are more essential to context-aware games. In some games,
the ideas and interpretations of other players will actually be the source
of context as bottom–up communities form to give life to clues and
puzzles. Other games will recognize the diversity of situations in the
real world and give players the tools to create and share their own ad-
ventures.
5. Most exciting games will come from the bottom up. Context-aware games
won’t require million-dollar budgets or highly specialized developers to
be successful. The barriers to creation and distribution are much lower
than traditional video games, and ideas for compelling stories or novel
interactions will be far more valuable than a degree in computer science.

From http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:JoLJcd_MAqwJ:www.iftf.org/docs/SR_997_Context_Aware_Gaming_ExecSum.pdf+timeline+location-based+games&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10

Posted by Celinelj at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is probably one of those times when I should think before I write......but I never listen to my own advice...so I'm just going to ramble this evening....

I've been thinking again about passing location-based data into Second Life....Is there are point? Well some of the newest SL mash-ups use location-based data fed in from the real world...you can walk across a map of the united states in SL and see live information about the US weather system directly over the top of your avatar...using SL to be able to play with the scale and then experience that data in a 3D embodied, ALMOST physical but certainly immersed way.

And then thinking about the SGI plans..I definitely think it'd be interesting to walk into the Virtual SGI and see avatars - like strange ghosts representing real people walking around the virtual building...why? I think there's an element of voyeurism there...getting to see what everyone's up to...even behind the closed doors. Or at least seeing where they are - like a security guard sitting behind her surveyance cameras. But more fun because you can walk amongst them...and they'd be totally unaware...unless there's some way using projectors or sounds to let the people in the real building know there are virtual visitors nearby.

I can see the potential for a simple "collision" game. Come to think of it, Blast Theory's "Can You See Me Now" uses this kind of model - but in a less pervasive, more event driven way.

I can also see the potential for cross-breeding style games in which virtual SGI is filled with primordial soup....the real-life people who work there are all represented in the virtual world as amoebas (I don't mean that to sound rude!) outside visitors bring in extra cross-breeding material and new exotic genes to add to the pool...maybe the structure of the Amoebas DNA is somehow related to something simple like where someone has travelled from, or the letters in their name.....and then as people's paths cross, day in and day out, the amoebas are cross-breeding, maybe inbreeding...and of course some activities in real life will be very repetitive and lead to very distinct breeds, less frequent activities would introduce new strains...and just like Spore, the amoebas are developing into races, complex beings....

OK, that's not so much a game as some kind of odd experiment or simulation but it'd be fascinating to watch the beings develop as an SLer and equally curious to see how your actions, habits, everyday behaviour as a real-life-er is effecting the development of a species...I have a feeling you'd learn something about social networks through this.

SL is always aware of every movement that every avatar makes as my last post testifies..that information is easy to get hold of. Is there any way to make a game IN SL out of THAT information? I think a better question might be...what kind of game could you create if you sometimes REVEALED data about everyone's location to everyone else in SL? And even more interesting, if you sometimes hid or offered incorrect information...

Posted by Celinelj at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was looking to set up a new Second Life account and I spotted that there was a new surname......"Llewellyn".

There really aren't that many Llewellyns in this world and I have never found evidence of a Celine Llewellyn-Jones anywhere in first-life so I thought it would be amusing to recreate myself right down to the name in Second Life. Imagine how I felt when "Celine Llewellyn" was already taken! What are the odds? All of a sudden I feel as if I have a dopple ganger....running around living a parallel life under my name....slightly creepy. This crossing of worlds feels a bit too close for comfort!

Posted by Celinelj at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Linden Labs have created this simple mash-up that allows you to track the location of your avatar in Second Life. Haven't quite worked out how I'd make use of the info yet but for the moment - it's all up on Delicious. I can see it would have applications for social networking, tracking, tag and stalking games (I'm thinking in-world "Can You See Me Now" style), strategy becomes easier because you've got much more scope for god-like perspectives. And suddenly there's an infinite level of focus, just like google earth - rather than the usual toggling between 3rd and 1st person....

What I like the best is my tracker doesn't look like the latest bit of black, shiny geek-tech - it's just part of my hand-bag!

Posted by Celinelj at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dockers' Dilemma is a location-based educational game played in the modern Docklands landscape augmented by historic sights and sounds. It aims to bring history to life by throwing players back in time, to land in the shoes of a 1900s Apprentice docker. The challenge: survival

Eventually I'll convert this to the new mscapers tool so there'll be much less mucking around but for the moment, if you have a PDA with windows mobile 3 or 5 and gps (inbuilt or via bluetooth), then you can try out the location-based Dockers' Dilemma game I designed a couple of year ago by downloading and installing the files which below.

Within the zip file you'll find all the necessary software, game files and instructions.

There are two versions of the zip file depending on whether you want to save the game and all the software to your device's SD card (if so click here to download) or straight into the default space (files to my docs and programs to the default programs folder) - in which case click here to download!.

The game is place-based so you'll need to be able to get to Museum in Docklands (Canary Wharf), to play - it starts just outside the Museum Entrance.

I welcome any feedback and would be happy to support you in person if I'm nearby at the time you'd like to play.

If you've got any questions, feel free to leave a comment here and I'll get straight back to you.

Posted by Celinelj at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Register for the event here - it's free!

Workshops mentored by industry professionals, keynotes from a range of backgrounds, a showcase of mediascapes and plenty of networking.

Posted by Celinelj at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)