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Blast Theory Unwires Online Games
Wired is running a story on "wireless games" as being developed by Blast Theory. They are games played on mobile phones using GPRS to deduce the physical location of the game player, which is used as part of the game. Two different game ideas are touched on, as well as some discussion of where the ideas came from and where they're going. Cool stuff that even sounds fun, and reminds me a bit of playing tag with CB radios.
Wow. I cannot wait until they expand this further. Forget pencil and paper AD&D. Imagine expanding on this idea and using known-maps of cities as the dungeons where you take up a character and text message your responses. "I am Tier, master of the Bronx." Certainly redefines the idea of the RPG.
That touches on one problem I have concerning the game. I think they will have trouble with game dynamics until they are able to provide real-maps of the service area. Imagine having to reach a point in the game that, in your world, would put you in the middle of the river, or inside a concrete wall. I suppose that you could possibly re-define your position, but for users in crowded areas (like the test cities that they mentioned), this would get frustrating. It would not have to be terribly detailed, since the landscape often changes, but it should not be too difficult to define the main buildings of the city and use this as the background map for the game.
The only question that I have is: how reliable is the positioning? I realize that they are not using straight-GPS, but I am curious as to how reliable the positioning is. When I was working on autonomous robot navigation (keeping in mind that we did not have a differential GPS system readily available), we had problems with floating satellite positioning that sometimes put the target nine foot away from its actual position. The article mentioned getting within five meters, which makes the nine foot floating irrelevant (unless both positions ended up 9 feet on either side from eachother), but I am curious nonetheless.
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"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
hmm, this technology sure could have helped those involved in Olympic Hide and Seek.
... (we see Don Roberts practising hiding) our own Don Roberts from Hinckley in Leicestershire who, his trainer tells me, is at the height of his self-secreting form. And now in the first leg, which ended on Wednesday, Don succeeded in finding the Paraguayan in the new world record time of 11 years, 2 months, 26 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes, 27.4 seconds, in a sweetshop in Kilmarnock. And now they're under starter's orders.
Comentator: Hello, good afternoon and welcome to the second leg of the Olympic final of the men's Hide-and-Seek here in the heart of Britain's London. We'll be surfing in just a couple of moments from now, and there you can see the two competitors Francisco Huron the Paraguayan, who in this leg is the seeker (we see Francisco Huron darting about, looking behind things) and there's the man he'll be looking for
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