New games

Ok, so time for some more research. First some new 'pervasive' games. One is Insectopia, which is to be played on mobile phones. It is described thus: Players roam the cityscape searching for and catching a multitude of different insects. The idea seems to be that these bugs are passed on from mobile to mobile, and so they are kind of self generating in a sense. But they must start somewhere, and that is unclear. Although the game seems to have started in Sweden, as it is developed by Interactive Institute, so I guess that's where the bugs came to life, in Stockholm. I wonder how far it has spread? What I particularly like is that you can do a solo search, where you can only collect one bug ecery 3 minutes, or a double search, where you search with a friend who is using their phone too, and you can collect as many as you like. So there's a social side to the game too. Nice.

The other game is called GeoQuiz. This one is described as a location-based mobile game which is playable on Nokia Series 60 phones. So, it needs the symbian operating system to work, and utilises the GSM network to work out where you are - cell ID technology. The point of the game is to leave and answer questions that are specific to a particular place, which makes the game a location-based one - you have to be in a certain place to collect the question and find the answer. The game world link doesn't seem to be working, but I'm worndering whether it only operates at the Chalmers University of Technology, in Gothenburg, where it was made.