Urban Sports App

The idea is to create a platform or portal for organising large-scale, multi-player, location-based games. Users would have a profile and gain experience points and rep points for participating in and winning games. Most games would be best suited to urban environments and high population density areas hence the name. The point is to connect strangers and have fun but it could potentially be tastefully commercialised through geo-targeted ads for local businesses.

Technical details

Games could include:

• Manhunt - User is given the profile pictures of 3 players active in their area. The aim is to identify and approach them. The app could verify the contact (?Bluetooth,NFC etc.) or the 'target' could confirm. Both players get points.. (This is to prevent the targets disguising themselves in their photos). This would be a long-term, ongoing type game.
• Chess - This would be more of a one-off, prearranged game. Registered players would be assigned a chess piece. A standard chess board would be overlaid on a map of the city or area. The pieces/players would have to hold their position on the map whilst a game of chess is played (? with moves voted for by the team). When moved a player would have a set time to reach their new position. When taking a piece the players have to meet face-to-face and could play a quick, pre-agreed game like rock, paper, scissors where the advantage goes to the attacking player. So occasionally the attacked player will win and this fact will feedback onto the chessboard. Similarly, if players get lost, arrested or sent home by their mum's the corresponding chess piece would be removed from the board. All players get points for participating, winners get more. Everyone can meet in a pub after for debrief.
• Zombies - One player becomes a zombie. They are able to infect others by being in close proximity to them. Zombies can see non-infected players' locations. Non-infected can only see other non-infecteds locations and last known positions after they have turned. Players gain max points for distance moved during game period and are penalised/disqualified for camping.
• Flashmob - Pretty self-explanatory. One-off, short-notice locations are assigned, players gain points for time spent inside zone before it times out. Maybe point multipliers based on number of people there.
• Treasure Hunt - User generated treasure hunts using photos, clues and riddles to lead other players to an ultimate goal. Points awarded based on speed of completion. These could be available at any time or one-off, house generated treasure-hunts where first player to complete wins.
• Sardines - Similar to a flashmob but the location is set by one player (the 'alpha sardine') who is randomly assigned. They select a public location in which to base themselves (preferably somewhere sheltered that provides food and drink as they might be there a long time..) players are notified that a sardine is amongst them and given the option to join the search. They then get the locations of all the other players, updated every 5 minutes. When a player finds the sardine/s, they disappear from the map and only their last known location is shared. So the search should become gradually easier as more clues are added to the map. Points awarded in order of arrival or time spent as sardines.
• Race - Simple point-to-point race. Either pre-agreed modes of transport or 'free-style'.
• Straight-Lining - Open challenge, in which players must get from point A to point B in as straight a line as possible. This might involve trespassing, climbing buildings and swimming across canals. Only for the really brave/stupid. Points for least deviation from line as recorded by GPS. Lines could be user submitted.
• Cluedo - Essentially a real-world version of the board game. In development..

All of these games depend on location services which its possible to spoof on most devices so cheating would be difficult to prevent. Also, there are definitely safety concerns with a real risk of people getting hit by cars, drowning, beaten up, arrested and abducted so it would definitely need a water-tight disclaimer!

The success of an app like this would obviously be dependent on the user base. Getting enough people to sign up initially to make the games viable would be the main challenge. So version one could focus on smaller scale games and larger scale games could be added as the user base grows. Alternatively, it could open with a well publicised large scale game to get publicity.. Though I guess that's the more expensive/risky option.