Location Based Gaming and the Next Unexpected Thing

Here's proof that the Design for Mobile conference is ahead of the curve. Last year one of the more interesting speakers was Swedish researcher Liselott Brunnberg. She showed off her Backseat Playground project, a game based on location, gesture (direction sensing, really) and using no output to the user but audio. And it worked; children are deeply engaged long into the test. Who doesn't want that for long drives?

Imagine my surprise and pleasure at this essay on the same concept by Jaako Kaidesoja, the Director of Games at Nokia. They are launching a social, location sensitive game and are therefore now pushing the whole concept to the developer community as well as presumably to consumers.

For more on Liselott's project check out an interview Barbara did with her, the summary of last year's session or the TII page on the project.

As we say a lot, GPS and gesture and almost everything else built into mobile devices are just enabling technologies. These sorta of locative media projects are exactly the sort of end uses that we can expect to emerge from this. I continue to be excited about the future, but now everyone else, go out and get excited also! I am almost disappointed in Jaako's essay, because it seems late to me.

There's no telling what the world will be like, except that it will be different and new. I'd love to see more encouragement from folks like Nokia to develop that next unpredictable thing.

There's still time to sign up for this year's Design for Mobile Conference. And if you can't make it to Lawrence in a week, or your training budget has been cut away, we've added inexpensive virtual sessions (sorry, not for the workshops) as well.