Discussion: Gaming and orienteering

My son David and I have been talking about creating an orienteering game in Minecraft. He threw together this prototype.

Why Minecraft?

Because there are millions of people who play Minecraft. If we can figure out a way to draw some of them into playing in a world with an orienteering element, it's more PR.

Interestingly, there is a whole Minecraft subculture around a Hunger-Games-like world. Teams of two communicate, maybe via Skype, while playing. (You can communicate to other players not on your starting team by typing messages.) The result is highly watchable.

The vision we had was to create a game in Minecraft on real terrain. You could voxelize LIDAR data, and then edit the map in MCEdit. One version of a game might be like hungercraft, but in addition there are controls to pick up, and when you get them all your team wins. If we could get a bunch of people to play it, we could offer as a prize that really good players could win a trip to a real orienteering map to play the same game on the same terrain, but for real. In real life. By hooking those real players up with GPS, you could follow the game in real time with your avatar in the virtual world. You could join the excitement at the arena, or wander in the woods and see where the players are.

In David's prototype, I like that there is an arena of sorts with other people standing around watching, and the flagging tape is a wooden fence.

There has also been some discussion of doing something similar in Catching Features. I like that idea a lot. Maybe we could do both. The idea behind Minecraft is that it potentially reaches a vast audience. Catching Features is a nicer experience.

[Sometimes I have to reload my web page to see the video above.]

[Cross-posted from my log]

Poster mock-up:





Tell me what you think.

Sounds very cool. I especially like the "play it for real" option!

thats soo awesome! i know you can play mine craft on the ipad or ipod as well. so maybe we can orienteer instead of text?

The new Wii U console comes out on Sunday, and it seems like it would be perfect for an orienteering game. The controller is essentially a 6" tablet, which ties to the game shown on the TV. The big screen could show a 1st or 3rd person view in the terrain, and the tablet would show the map.

Some of the games available at launch already use the tablet as a map (among other things). I wonder if somewhere there's a mini game that's essentially orienteering. For the original Wii console, the "Island Cycling" game within Wii Fit is basically a score-o.

Looks pretty cool. Great idea!

One thing I immediately notice is that the map does not orient to the direction you are travelling. Being able to orient the map would be a definite plus.

Yeah - it was just a quick demo that David put together, using "vanilla" Minecraft. Orienting the map was one of several features he knew would be important, but might require mods - all doable.

Wii - cool. Wonder how we make it happen.

A kid at today's HVO (+DVOA) event mentioned Minecraft, and I said that someone was making an orienteering version. Unfortunately, he didn't see the connection, and I had no way to explain it... :-\

I'm sure I'd buy it but I wonder if there's really a market for this. Orienteers by definition seem to prefer to be out doors, rather than indoors playing games, and I'd worry that gamers will find the concept unexciting (unless you get to shoot anyone) and probably would think the idea that the "map" doesnt show where you are on it is some sort of flaw...

(PS I think it'd have to look more realistic than minecraft too)

It wouldn't take much to go from "punching" controls to "shooting" them :-)...

They shoot azimuths, don't they?

Believe it or not it'd appeal to some gaming non orienteers, but on minecraft...it would be much better if something like catching features brought there game to Xbox as an indie game, which is basically a game that nobody would buy from a shop but sell over xbox for 50p-£5 and there really are awful games that people buy.

Yes, please, Catching Features on xbox.