Mogi Location-Based Mobile Gaming Hits Japan

Thanks to TheFeature for its article discussing the popular Japanese mobile phone game Mogi, a title which "uses both the position of players in the landscape, and the landscape itself to generate play." The French developers of Mogi at Newt Games explain: "We used the map to give [virtual] creatures some interesting behavior. Some creatures only hunt at night. Some hang around close to parks", thus: "If a player wants to find that [in-game] creature, they'll have to travel near a park [playing Mogi on their mobile phone] in the evening hours." A keen Tokyo-based player of the game also explains why he enjoys it: "All the trips I make in the city are now randomized, as I will often divert a few hundred meters to go and collect an object around me."

Comments

It won't spread.

[Hittite Creosote]

Some creatures only hunt at night. Some hang around close to parks

Anyone in New York fancy going to a park at night time and waving around your expensive mobile phone?

Re:It won't spread.

[El Torico]

...imagine idiot drivers on their cellphones randomly flying across 4 lanes of traffic...

Have you ever driven in Naples, Italy?

Re:It won't spread.

[SEWilco]

Problem: Players being directed to locations away from criminals.

Solution: Steal a game phone. Follow directions to locations where you can steal more phones.

Pokemon....

[zarthrag]

...and don't you dare say that isn't what it's going to come to. People are going to run around the country-side/planet chasing small cute fighting animals with one word vocabularies and, ultimately, train them to fight each other.

A mugger's dream?

[tehcyder]

You could hack the game so that your victims went to a suitable lonely dark corner of a park...or for the /.ers you could lure a dizzy bimbo to your house with the promise of a "special bonus" ;-)

Re:A mugger's dream?

[noodler]

but don't be disapointed if you find a 5-year old japanese girl on your doorsteps!

---

Sigs are for nerds...

Re:Take an object, leave an object

[Intocabile]

Yeah the magic mushrooms I found it the park did make me grow, but I can't seem to find any fire flowers, feathers, or even a single giant windup sock.

Could be good for geeks...

[LamerX]

Perhaps they could put items or whatever in social areas, like clubs or bars. This way not only will us geeks get our exercise roaming around the city, we may be forced to mingle with real people. Maybe they could pay hot chicks to be waiting in a club, and the only way you can get experience points is to talk her into giving you a secret code! Just think, for a small montly fee you could get interaction with a hot chi...

sssh!! time to run and patent this brilliant money-making idea!!

Re:Reality gaming!

[Arathrael]

So you can in-game walk the same street as you're walking in-real-life, but only in-game it's packed with action, wheres the in-real-life version is as boring as always.

I don't know about the real-life version being boring - I imagine it'd be quite entertaining to watch hordes of people walking into things and falling over because they were trying to play a game and walk down a street simultaneously (a bad move when many probably haven't yet mastered walking and chewing gum at the same time).

Plenty of scope there for passing away the time Nelson (from the Simpsons) style: Ha-ha!

Or, you could get interactive and try to break their minds by dressing up as characters from the game and confronting them in real life. Now that would be fun! :-)

Re:Community support

[Maladriak]

Good point Pete. I guess it would all depend on the numbers involved. Even nerds can be dangerous when they Swarm! :)