GPS city game at Jena

The Berlin-based company tranformat recently announced the production of a gps urban game for the city Jena, Thuringia, Germany.

“31.01.2008
Jena bekommt “Schnapphans” – ein GPS-Stadtspiel

Ab Sommer ’08 können sich die Jenaer ebenso wie die Besucher der Stadt mit einem Leih-PDA auf eine interaktive Entdeckungstour durch Jena begeben. Die technische Umsetzung des anspruchsvollen Spielkonzepts von art+wege aus Weimar übernimmt transformat.”

http://www.location-based-media.de/

Play REXplorer@Regensburg

A pervasive game for the exploration of the ancient city Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany.

“Besucher werden gebeten, als wissenschaftliche Assistenten merkwürdige Phänomene in der Altstadt Regensburgs zu untersuchen. Für ihre Feldforschung erhalten die Teilnehmer einen Apparat mit künstlicher Intelligenz, der es erlaubt, mit historischen und sagenhaften Charakteren wie durch ein Walkie Talkie Kontakt aufzunehmen und sogar mit diesen per Gestik zu interagieren.

Der Apparat hilft und kommentiert das Abenteuer auf ironische Weise, und es zeigt sich alsbald, dass die Stadt von einer “immerwährenden Magie” durchwoben ist. Tagessieger wird, wer möglichst viel von dieser Magie aufspürt und die Aufgaben, die die Charaktere stellen, gemeinsam mit anderen ?REXplorern? löst.

Die einzelnen Stationen der Erkundungsreise durch die Altstadt werden automatisch als multimediales Tagebuch (blog) aufbereitet, das als persönliches Souvenir dient. (Game Design: Steffen P. Walz)”

http://www.rex-regensburg.de/stadtspiel/rexplorer/

Hamburg GPS Guide

(Photo: Hamburg Tourismus GmbH)

For the GPS city guide collection: Hamburg offers a device to rent with three tours to follow since 6 may 2007.

http://www.hamburg-tourism.de/themen-touren/rundfahrten-und-gaenge/gps-stadtfuehrer/

Wiesbaden 3D in Google Earth

Since 18 january Wiesbaden presents a 3D view of the city in Google Earth – as the first city of Hesse, Germany. Wiesbaden follows Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden…www.wiesbaden.de/3d http://www.main-rheiner.de/region/objekt.php3?artikel_id=3128026

GPS Guide Stuttgart (DE)

For my collection of GPS city guides: Stuttgart offers a rental system. You can also buy the software for your Windows PDA.

http://www.stuttgart-tourist.de/DEU/ipunkt/stuttgart2go.htm

Places to smoke at Germany and France

smoke-spots.de is a google maps mashup showing German locations for smokers and was launched a few days ago. It is part of a marketing campaign by Reemtsma, a company of the Imperial Tobacco Group – reacting to the new legal restrictions for smoking in the public.
Reemtsma press release (German)

Same thing for French: “Places to smoke at France” (Google Maps Mania) can be found at oufumer.fr. The credits do not give any hint whether the tobacco industry sponsors the projects.

locr@Nokia

Germany-based company locr states that their software for Symbian S60 phones is available at Nokia’s EMEA download site – in a press release for instance via inar.de. locr offers a community and a software for geotagging photos.

www.locr.de | http://www.locr.com/index.php?lang=en

Locative games nominated for IGF Mobile

The “Independent Games Festival Mobile” nominated two locative games in the category “Innovation in Augmented Design“:

“PhoneTag Elite [KnowledgeWhere, Calgary, Alberta, Canada] turns hide and seek into a radical group sport across North America by using the mobile phone as a console for chatting and location-tracking. Available exclusively to Sprint customers across America, taggers can shop in-game at their favourite brand stores for tools to help evade capture and pursue targets.

PhoneTag Elite is designed to build both team and community relationships, encourage physical and mental agility, and introduce a new way of playing interactive games from your mobile phone. But, most of all, PhoneTag Elite is designed to be fun. PhoneTag Elite utilizes a patent pending, proprietary technology that protects individuals’ privacy and ensures the players true location is never revealed.”

“Anna’s Secret [by Jan Ulrich Schmidt, Hamburg, Germany] is a GPS driven, location-based learning adventure game for cultural content in the city of Weimar (Germany). A player walks with a GPS-able Pocket PC through the Ilm-park and passes sightseeings. Video clips show Anna and explain the sights, which have an important role in the game. On his way the player has to solve different quests and mysteries to solve Anna’s Secret. If he does well, he can find a treasure chest.

The story of a ghost that suffers from amnesia is used to immerse the player into the gameplay. Many videos show the ghost Anna or details of the park and its history. The game could be adapted to any other city, if the content and the story are modified.

Anna’s Secret is based on the game ‘geocaching’, but extends this play by video and film clips, multimedia features, components of a adventure game and a real, historical background story.

The project is a diploma thesis at the Bauhaus-University of Weimar at the professorship for media and interface design. It respects aspects of ubiquitous and pervasive gaming.

Via GPSbusinessnews