Voila everybody! I’m Melisande. I’m the new trainee of Richard’s team. In the next 4 weeks, I’m working on the BOGfest project and I’m very enthusiastic about it.
I’m 28, I come from France and on the 1st day I tried one of the GPS games, it was a lot of fun and it told me something about the story of Brighton. Without hesitating, I recommend everyone “The Treasure Hunt “.
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Hello there, my name is Raphaela and I’m the new helping hand for Richard. In the next few weeks I’m going to help him prepare the fantastic BOGfest and get involved in the marketing. Moreover, I’ll be here to support developing new games.
I’m from Austria but live and work in Brighton. To be honest, at the beginning I was slightly confused with all those new ideas and the thing with the gps but yesterday I got to play the treasure hunt game and actually loved it! I think it’s so much fun and I really wonder now why noone else had the idea before of creating that type of game. I’m sure this is going to be a great success and hey, now I’m part of it!!!
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We have been asked by several team building companies about the LocoMatrix treasure hunt, with a view to doing something similar for them. I have given this much thought over the last couple of months and have also done some research on the treasure hunt offerings they currently, um, offer.
The first thing you discover when you start researching is just how many team building companies there are – hundreds, and of course the second thing is that they all offer treasure hunts. Most require that you go out with paper and pencil, possibly a camera and even in some cases a GPS unit. But what Ifind interesting is that there is very little talk of how this “builds” a team. I am inclined to think that by and large these might encourage team bonding, but more likely falls under the “fun-day” heading.
So how can we at LocoMatrix help? Glad you asked me that as I have a few thoughts in that department – the first being that we know where all the players are at any time, and because everyone is linked via the server there can be links to their positions and the game play. This can mean various things:
It can also mean that team members with different skills or abilities can be required to participate in different ways. I am particularly interested in how we can combine player qualities (e.g. Myers Briggs types [and maybe even discovering these through play]) into the mix.
In future posts I intend to elaborate on how we might achieve some of these goals
In the last blog I explained in some detail how you use the treasure hunt editor. Here we are going to look further at the process of creating a game – but bear in mind that I have, so far, only created a few and at the moment there is a lot of trial and error. You learn a lot from creating a game and then trying it out with real people. Expect to come back to this as I get more experience and feedback.
As the players start by being presented with a picture, an obvious ploy is to present them with a view of where they are and the direction they should be traveling in. Below is a view from my front door where my first test game started. As they walk towards the destination, the second picture is displayed. Now if we want to do something simple – this is a picture of something they can see easily. Here after 1 minute, they come to a fountain.
It may seem obvious, but worth stating anyway. I plan a route that I know, so have a fairly good idea of the places that I am going to use. I take my camera and look to take portrait-orientated photos (for usual phone screen shape). It might be good here to introduce the subject of theme. For a general treasure hunt, this might be unnecessary but it can serve to focus on how one goes about creating the game. A couple of examples close to where I live are: a “blue plaque” trail, a seafront exploration, or a tapas tour.
But of course this is a fairly simple way to use it. I have created a couple of games for places that I haven’t been to. A bit risky, but so far, so good. Satellite photos (e.g. Google Maps/Earth (and can be used and you can use them even for places that you have access too – a treasure hunt of aerial photos and maps can be a challenging. A general point here is that the contrast is not so good with most maps – a spot of improvement can be useful (praise be the “one step photo fix” : )
A difficulty that one is presented with when creating the initial picture to point the player in the right direction, is will it really show him the way. A map of the general area with a hand-drawn arrow had been useful to me. But we can also think laterally. A clue to take the player to a nearby roundabout could be a road sign of a roundabout. And now we are thinking laterally, why don’t we start to create some really cryptic clues. I’m looking for volunteers – but don’t worry, if all else fails, there is still the warmometer.
Our Treasure Hunt is now available for playing. I have created some test sites (Soutbank, London / Portsmouth Uni / Brunswick, Hove / Weald & Downland Museum, Singleton) but it is very easy for anyone to create one. The beta can be found here.
The goal of Treasure Hunt is to navigate a course of waypoints using picture clues (with a little help from the “warmometer” – it tells you if you are getting hotter or colder!). When the game starts you are presented with a picture on your phone that should point you in the direction of the first location. As you near this point, a second picture will be shown, which should allow you to identify the exact point (in a following post, I will be sharing some ideas for how you might do this). If the clues alone are not enough, you can reveal a hint – and don’t forget the warmometer.
And now down to details
Start by giving the game a name. This is how you will see it in the list of games when you go to Treasure Hunt on your phone.
Then click on “add new waypoint” then go down to the Name and er… give it a name. Then add a description – this will appear when the user gets to the destination. If you give a hint, the user will see this when he clicks on the hint button on the phone.
Now use the map to find your target – you can use either a map or the satellite view (hint: you can also the search facility). Click on the map to add the coordinates of your waypoint.
Click on the image tab to upload the 2 images needed for you location. You select them from your local drive and then click on the red “upload” thingy. Bear in mind that different phones have different screen sizes and that you need to make sure that your clue will be understood however seen. In order to help, click on the point of interest for each picture and the program will crop the image in the best way possible. Also don’t forget that in strong light your pictures may not be seen to best advantage so try and increase the contrast and not include too much detail (more on this soon).
Nearly there. Just repeat the above by adding new waypoints. And (I was going to say Hey Presto, but changed my mind) there’s your treasure hunt. Click on “Submit Game” to send it off to to LocoHQ.
This is a description of a proposed game to be played in New York and London at the same time. The game can only be completed if there is a player (or team) in each place. The intention is to introduce the game during the Come Out and Play festival in NY which runs between the 6th and 8th of June 2008.
We have created a treasure hunt using cell phones connected via Bluetooth to GPS. Our current version has players navigate a route on which several landmarks have to be found.
To get to the first destination from the start: a photograph of a part of the surrounding landscape appears on the phone screen. The player heads in the corresponding direction and as they get closer, a more detailed picture of a specific landmark or object appears. Once they arrive, a suitable piece of text is shown, maybe describing the object. Players are aided by the warmometer
The Come Out and Play version will be played in NY and
Pairs of players/teams would set off at 5 minute intervals from the starting point (also the finish) with an average course time of around 30 minutes. Phones and GPS would be provided at the start and a guide would be on hand for further help.
Teams have to visit all the locations in the Treasure Hunt in the correct order. Course time will appear on the phones when the last location has been found. The winners are the ones who complete the course in the fastest time.
A nice touch might be to photograph the 2 players and put them on a web site so they could see who they had played with – alternatively it might be possible to do this at the start/end if one can get internet access in the parks.
If at first you don’t succeed – don’t try parachuting, but seriously what to do when the player doesn’t get it straight away, or gets it wrong. We can give clues – these could be:
When I started thinking about a LocoMatrix treasure hunt, I created a photo version just to try out with friends. How this worked was, I took a picture from my front door which the player looked at and then at a following picture which was something that could be seen in the former (though not just an enlarged section of the first – I actually stood close to the object in question.
On “playback” during the game, the player would move in the direction of the first picture and then start looking for the feature of the second. When he has found it, he would click on a button, and if he is right, would then get the next picture pair. Points can be awarded for the time it takes to get there (or bonus/penalty for nearness to suggested time).
Interesting things happened on my first trial, in that 3 of the features had changed since I created the sequence in the morning.
Here, the windbreak for the cafe that had been taken down in the late afternoon
and here, amazingly the pane of glass through which this was shot had been repaired (it must have been like that for at least 2 years)
Treasure Hunt
This game is in production and should be ready in the next few weeks. The players will be able to follow a pre-programmed path following clues that can be created by users in advance. Hope to have some advance screen-shots for you in the next few days.
Qix
This is the next game to be created. It will be similar to the old arcade game of the same name with some interesting variations, and interestingly can be played in both small (field), medium (town) and large (whatever you like – county, state, planet!) arenas. It can also be a pedestrian game, or on any form of transport you care to imagine – skateboard, yacht, camel, mountain bike etc. etc. For more information on Qix see the Wikepedia entry here
