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Geoinformatics_03-2009
article figure 2: location awareness in the urban game the target gangster s activities in the city that can be followed. furthermore the policemen automatically get a signal from the gangster every six minutes. hence they can continuously check for their target . both parties can shoot virtually each other if they are within a radius of 25 m from the other party but they only have three bullets. the game ends when the policemen have shot the gangster. every shoot is calculated by the relative gps-position of the parties taking into account the material structure of the urban environment. the gangster himself has all the same information on his mobile phone and can use a bunch of virtual tools to shake off any police pursuit. he can use the radio jammer to hide his gps-signal, a bullet-proof west to be protected from shoots and a mine to set a snare for policemen. the game is appropriate for three to thirty-six players and is available in many cities in the netherlands, belgium and france. eventually it is more like a video game that has been adapted to the urban environment as a play board. the virtual setting becomes very important for this game. gps- and mobile communication technology are essential to make the game work and connect players, the material structure of a city and the virtual objects with each other. the target could not work without location and mobile communication technology as game flow is inextricably intertwined with the moves of players that is, all players need to be informed about the movements and actions of the other party in real time to be able to play the game. thus the level of location awareness is an essential element for all players being enabled by gps-technology and mobile communication. in fact sometimes they are marked or a sign is put on confluence points but eventually they are fictitious points. the aim of confluence projects is a hunt for these points to make them visible. thus every player and it can be everybody with a gps-device and a camera is in competition with others to be the first discoverer of a confluence point. the project 4816 is a confluence project dedicated to the austrian capital vienna to find and take a photo of all minute intersection points within the administrative borders of the city. looking at the matrix of minute intersections in vienna unfolds the number of 185 points to be discovered. a website accompanies the project that displays all intersection points on a map and displays those which have already been found. when a point is found, a picture of the point including the gps-device with correct coordinates as evidence should be taken. this picture can then be uploaded to the website of the project. many points have been visited already, some even more than once, e.g. once in summer and once in winter. but there are still some left which are very tricky such as points within waterbodies. some points are even impossible to be discovered legally as they are on private property, in factory buildings or military zones. the game is not about teambuilding and neither about hunting someone else but being a discoverer. the intersection points as virtual and fictitious formations of a geospatial coordinate system connect the player by their georeference to unexpected and in fact unforeseen places in the material world. the gps-device becomes the decoder for the coordinate system, guiding the player within the urban environment of vienna to the points to be found. although the players are in competition, they don not know who might be their competitor. there is nothing to win but to cope with a personal challenge. location awareness an enabler for urban games for many urban games the adoption of media tools is a requirement. websites usually accompany the game or provide important functions for the game. mobile communication is a key element if real-time information or the connection to a control centre has a crucial role for the flow of the game. a digital camera is an important part of the equipment for many urban games to fix a moment and have a proof for the reaching of a location, a finished task or the documentation of actions in general. gps technology is already a familiar element in many urban games because many of them have their roots in a geo-caching-like mode of playing. maps have been used in many urban games already, normally for orientation, remarks or to give a route for the players. digital mapping and the integration of geo-browsers broaden the adoption of maps in urban games. in combination with mobile- and gps-technology, digital mapping can be used to intertwine the video game, a virtual space, with the urban game and thus with the material space. digital mapping and mobile communication allow for the visualisation of living maps in real-time and thus players can react on the actions of other players even when they are out of sight, like in a video game but normally impossible in material urban space. now the creators of games can draw from both worlds and put together games that can be an urban intervention, a dis- 4816 confluence project in vienna confluence games are taking a different approach of playing. confluence points are the intersection points within a coordinate system. these points are purely virtual objects as they do not have any material appearance on earth. latest news? visit www.geoinformatics.com figure 3: the map of all intersection points in vienna as shown on the website of project 4816. 11 april/may 2009
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