November 24, 2005
Street games
You're moving through the streets of Melbourne stalking your quarry. A phone call on your GPS mobile phone tells you your target is only a few streets away. A direct kill means boosting your team's score. And in this game, winning is everything. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
"Welcome to the world of "real-life" games that blur the boundary between gaming and reality.
Last year the classic arcade game Pacman came to life on the streets of New York. A player dressed as Pacman ran around Manhattan collecting virtual "dots" while trying to evade four players dressed as ghosts. Each player had a human controller back at base who monitored their progress online and phoned through strategy and advice.
A few months later, a lab at Singapore National University had developed a version of the same game using GPS and motion sensors to track players through the city's streets. This time, players could see the game overlaid on the real world through special goggles called augmented-reality headsets.
A lab at the the University of South Australia is also working on moving gaming from the couch and on to the streets by projecting games into the real world.
Related: - Pervasive gaming
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