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Pirates!
fm6 writes: "Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? Try Pirates! You simulate a voyage of discovery, trade, and plunder by walking around a physical gaming area carrying a PDA equipped with a proximity sensor. Encounters with other players (including naval battles) happen when the two players actually approach each other. Here's an article on Business 2.0."
Fuckin' A, man, it's gettin' so you can't run a Carracho server in this town without gettin' bitched at by the self-appointed warez hounds. I tell ya...
--hongpong.com
From the article...
Upon arriving at an island, a player might find something valuable, such as tobacco.
I get the feeling that the people who will be playing this game might need something more valuable...soap!
hmm. "low-range radio" transmitter/receiver pairs in a PDA. now what existing technology might replace their custom hardware?
Seriously, I think there is an interesting new genre of games that integrate PDAs and real world locations and/or real world people. Its nice to see others working in this direction.
There is another game based on mobile positioning called BotFighters in action since a couple of months in Sweden. Basically, a player may shoot at another player or attempt to take his/her weapons, but only if they are close enough to eachother.
Anyone with an ordinary mobile phone can play the game, as it uses the positioning information available form the cellular network. Using WAP or text messages may not really be as exciting as having a full-screen PDA in a wireless LAN, though.
I know that Scott said that we should 'Get over it', but anyway..
Anyone know the technical details on this stuff wrt 3rd parties getting hold of your location information?
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? /. reader's social skills.
Somehow I suspect that interacting with the kind of people who would play this game would just further stunt
A fun game in which players are given PDA's with infrared transmitters, and MP3 copies of five popular songs, chosen randomly out of 100. Each person has to convince others to share copies of their songs, and whoever collects all 100 first, wins the game!
Sounds easy, right? But watch out! Hillary ®osen and her crack gang of ©opyright police are out in full force, posing as regular players, and whenever you try and share with them, they take all your songs and you have to start over!
It's loads of fun! And remember, sharing is stealing!
The article neglected to mention that this was a.) a technology demonstration and b.) an exhibit at the recent SIGGRAPH show in Los Angeles. Probably a reason why Business 2.0 is rumored to follow The Industry Standard into the grave.
That said, the game's physical game area supposedly took place all over the "emerging technologies" showcase, with low-power, short-range (1 meter or so) 802.11 access points that represented "islands". At each island, there were several "?" scattered about, which you could explore. Each "?" was like drawing a card--a random even could wipe out some of your men, or you might strike gold, for example.
It was well done, although it didn't strike me as any more interesting than those Japanese gadgets that supposedly light up when someone "compatible" is in range. A year ago, these guys would have probably tried to promote this as the next hip party game, tried to go public, and flopped like the rest of 'em.
I know some old school gamers will back me up on this.
Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? Try Pirates!
Worried that too much computer gaming stunts your social skills? Try socializing!
Bush's education improvements were