Comments on: Virtual/Physical Locations

By: Jake Gostylo

Jake Gostylo — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:10:30 +0000

Looking more at your comments to others it seems like I am not going to be delivering what you want most. This is probably a difference of opinion, but I immediately shy away from games that rely heavily on user created content. User persistent content would be interesting, but a majority of user created content I find to be a waste of time.

The route I would take it is more of a Diablo style dungeon building algorithm. The random generation would be necessary to create all the playable content in the first place. Everything could be static. Or, possibly the dungeon could be dynamic but it changes based on user experience. Eliminate areas where people never go, expand walls into areas that people seem to approach expecting to be able to explore.

So I say you can certainly get your users to help craft the world, but I don’t think they should be the ones writing the content.

By: Christopher Weeks

Christopher Weeks — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:29:12 +0000

If it’s worth the ten bucks to you, the official Groundspeak Geocaching app is very nice. I don’t even take my “real” GPS devices out caching anymore. (They’re more precise, for whatever reason, but the iPhone GPS and the app are just so nice rolled together.)

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:43:22 +0000

I look forward to hearing more.

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:42:59 +0000

This was interesting as hell. It’s sad that the project is now closed. Still, many of the links from the page are still active projects and blogs. I’ll be back to check this site out more once I have the time. It’s not like what I want in my post above, but it’s still some interesting stuff.

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:40:59 +0000

I don’t have an android phone, so I can’t check it out directly, but the concept does look pretty cool, if a bit limited. But simpler is better, at least for wider acceptance, I guess.

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:38:11 +0000

Yeah. This post (and it’s responses) have enlightened me that there are a bunch of projects similar to this thing I’d like to play, but nothing widely accepted or user created. Maybe people don’t want it at all, or maybe none of these projects is really polished enough for greater acceptance.

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:36:16 +0000

The appeal, at least for me, is to get my local friends (who I game with online) back into physical social interaction. I understand that relying on a game to do this, instead of just cajoling them to get the hell off of their machines, is silly, but hey, there it is.

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:34:30 +0000

On some level, gentle spring rain is the same thing as a class 5 hurricane.

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:32:38 +0000

I checked out a geo catching website. It’s not what I’m looking for in my post above, but it still looks kinda fun. Apparently there are a bunch of geocaches just down the street from me, so I plan to take my phone out this weekend and see if I can find some.

Thanks for letting me know about this.

By: mispeled

mispeled — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:31:07 +0000

I gave this game a try last night. And although it looks interesting, I see it more as a real world “Risk” (territory capture, building, attacking) than anything else. Most certainly, it does not support user created content, which is probably the most important thing I’d like to see, past the physical/virtual ties.

Paeallell Kingdom would be pretty much the same game if it used a black background instead of one based on google maps. I respect what it want to do, and the more talk in this mechanic the better, but it’s nothing close to what I had in mind. My fault for explaining it poorly, I guess.