“Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and “treasure,” usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 480,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the sport. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.”
“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.
This video about FastFoot at Bremen, Germany, shows a game. It is an amateur film, but here comes the explanation how the game works:
“If you are “X”: don’t get caught.
If you are a Runner: Get him!
Whether meeting up with friends, or just looking out for action and movement – you can get started anywhere, anytime. Everything evolves spontaneously. The game is fast, intuitive and it does markably increase your oxygen consumption!
One “X” plus 4 Runners = 5 players choose the radius of the field size and the duration of the game. “X” starts a few minutes earlier than the Runners, and he can already see their position on his mobile. The further he now gets away from them, the better his initial position will be. At the end of his warming up phase, the Runners start, as he shows up on their mobiles for the first time. From now on, they will regularly see his position. Can he escape or will the Runners catch him?
Whether “X” or Runner: you’ll need strategy, coordination, luck and you’ll need to be fast. The phone constantly provides you with information about the players, like their position, moving direction and speed. You can chat, set markers or tag certain positions. You won’t be shown a city map, so you’ll have to guess the exact movements of the Runners. “X”‘s position will be even harder to pin point. Anyone who leaves the game field is out!
Enjoy new perspectives on your city. Corners you’ve never been before, short cuts you’d never have taken otherwise. Everything around you becomes part of your game, as real and virtual world melt together!”
“In the work the listener is asked to locate various substances that form the contemporary urban environment (glass, stone, concrete etc.). As they mark the location of each one they begin to hear interwoven stories connecting them to remote locations around the world, soundtracked with a generative music score. The narratives are progressed and concluded as the listener returns to the locations they chose. The piece is reflective and sometimes melancholy, it touches on issues of climate change and global awareness, but ultimately encourages the listener to treasure the moments around them…”
Posted by Andreas H. Bock 
