The Complete List of Location-based Games

Probably not quuuite complete, but Howard Rheingold has a list of “Urban Mobile Games” (which seems to be another term for location-based games):

Pac-Manhattan, by Dennis Crowley, Frank Lantz (instructor) and others

http://pacmanhattan.com

Location: Manhattan, New York, USA – 2004

Navigate the Streets, by Level 28 Brands

http://www.navigatethestreets.com

Location: Several Cities in Canada – 2004

I Like Frank in Adelaide, by Blast Theory

http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/frank/play.php

Location: Adelaide, Australia – 2004

Pirates!, by PLAY research studio, Interactive Institute

http://play.tii.se/projects/pirates/index.html

Location: HUC conference in Bristol, UK – August 2000

CitiTag, by HP Labs, the Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute (KMi)

http://cnm.open.ac.uk/projects/cititag

Location: Bristol, UK – 2004

Undercover, by YDreams

http://www.playundercover.com/index.jsp

Location: Hong Kong / Portugal – since 2003

Uncle Roy All Around You, by Blast Theory

http://www.uncleroyallaroundyou.co.uk

Location: London, UK – 2003

Can You See Me Now?, by Blast Theory

http://www.canyouseemenow.co.uk

Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands, March – 2003

Mogi, Newt Games

http://www.mogimogi.com

Location: Tokyo, Japan – since 2003

, by Amy Hung

http://a.parsons.edu/~awhung/thesis

Location: Times Square, NYC, USA – 2003

Urban Challenge, by Verizon Wireless

http://www.urbanchallenge.com

Location: Several Cities in USA – since 2002

NodeRunner, by Yury Gitman, Carlos J. Gomez de Llarena

http://www.uncommonprojects.com/noderunner

Location: NYC, USA – since 2002

The Go Game, by Wink Back, Inc.

http://www.thegogame.com/brownie/index.asp

Location: San Francisco, USA – since 2001

MobileHunt, by HIPnTASTY

http://www.mobilehunt.com/about.asp

Location: USA and Canada – since 2001

Cutlass – Treasure Hunt, by DCA Productions, Steve Bull (CEO)

http://ctlss.com/treasure_hunt/html/main.html

Location: Times Square, NYC, USA – since 2001

GunSlingers, Mikoishi Studios

http://guns.mikoishi.com

Location: Singapore – 2003

TreasureMachine, Unwiredfactory

http://www.unwiredfactory.com

BattleMachine / Zonemaster, by Unwiredfactory

http://www.de.battlemachine.com

http://www.zonemaster.myorange.dk

BotFighters, by It’s Alive

http://www.botfighters.com

Location: Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Russia – since 2000

Geocaching/GPS Stash Hunt, by Groundspeak

http://www.geocaching.com

Outdoor Mixed-reality Games

NetAttack

http://www.fit.fraunhofer.de/projects/netattack

Human Pacman

http://mixedreality.nus.edu.sg/research-HP-infor.htm

Demor

http://student-kmt.hku.nl/~g7/site/index_.html

From Locative mailing list

See also:

Asphalt Games (Intel Research)

http://www.asphalt-games.net/

Operation Urban Terrain

http://www.opensorcery.net/OUT/

6 Responses to “The Complete List of Location-based Games”

  1. Aubrey Says:

    Does le Parkour fit into this in any way?

  2. Aubrey Says:

    On second thoughts, that would open the floodgate for skating, base jumping, inlining etc.

    It’s not easy to draw the line, I suppose. Are all these games GPS based?

  3. Jesper Says:

    I haven’t gone through the entire list, but some of them (like Pirates!) are based on proximity (Bluetooth), Botfighters is cell-phone based (on location information derived from the transmitters I think), and some are GPS.

    But I agree that the categories are a bit strange. Location-based games: Any game in a stadium or any kind of tournament is location-based, so what’s new here?
    I think the connotation is something like “game played using a mobile device, but where location information matters to the gameplay”, mixed with some idea that the game should be played in a “normal” setting rather than on a designated playing field.

  4. zgs Says:

    i play frogger everyday, jaywalking the streets with my crooked teeth.

  5. Ralph Says:

    Hey What about Blister Entertainment’s Swordfish on Bell Mobility in Canada. Pretty cool! lots of people playing. Great game…GPS based I believe. Move to where the fish are ……

    cheers

  6. Jesper Says:

    Sounds nice! I was talking to some people in Norway who wanted to do a location-based game that included climbing the local mountains.
    Why keep it in the city at all?

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