One of the breakout location-based games of 2011 was MMORPG Shadow Cities, from Finnish developer Grey Area.
Designer Markus Montola gave a talk at GDC 2012's Smartphone & Tablet Gaming Summit entitled Shadow Cities and the future of location-based gaming.
"The planet is our playground," he explained. "You can play at the micro-level of your city block, but there's also a world battle between the game's two teams, Architects and Animators."
He argued that part of the game's success is built because players can enter their local folklore into the game as well as creating their own content such as scavenger hunts.
"It creates a secret world that is very powerful for players," Montola said. "Our vision is a global game layer that could extend to other media."
Couch potato
However, the first surprising conclusion Grey Area found was most players play on their sofa, with the most popular location for players being their home.
Home and work consist of 74 percent of play locations. On the move was 20 percent.
"This means you're often playing with your neighbours," Montola said.
This also feeds into Shadow Cities' specific gameplay.
"We need critical mass in every neighbourhood at all the time, because it's a team-based player versus player game," Montola explained.
"Critical mass is probably the biggest challenge for games like Shadow Cities."
It's not something that Grey Area has yet fully solved. Allowing virtual movement as well as physical movement helps, but it reduces the purity of a location-based game.
Challenges ahead
Other problems are more prosaic.
Battery life using GPS can be bad, especially for older devices, while GPS is not always very accurate. Network latency can also be an issue - all problems that players will complain to the developers about; potentially giving low iTunes reviews.
"We try to manage player expectations. We use casting animations so spells take a couple of second to cast, while location on the map is never shown as being totally accurate", Montola said.
He added, "The integration of real world and virtual world is difficult, especially in terms of thematic limitations. We seen a lot of games with vampires, zombies and Mafia. The themes are being tapping out".
Future shock
Indeed, Montola warned that some problems would likely be unsolvable - maybe including critical mass.
"The solutions are far from easy, but we want to be one of the first companies to define location-based gaming," he said.
"We believe the sweetspot is now, because there is not yet an dominant company in the space like Zynga.
"There are lots of competitors but at the moment, I think we're all trying to create an audience for location-based games rather than fighting over players."
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Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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