Augmented reality project

[hallsofvallhalla]

So Cayle got me thinking about AR again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality

and now that I am basically giving all my code to the MUD project away for free as apart of halls node I wanted to start thinking of a new project. I originally started on the Google maps game a while back but gave a chunk of it to a small company looking to do the same thing.

I want to build a phone/tablet app using google maps that puts you in a virtual world. You are a Ward, a silent defender of the world against the dark world and your only tool to protect the world is your device. It alerts you to creatures trying to cross over and you must run to stop them.

Basically when you play the game you explore locations and fight creatures virtually yet using real world locations. It will randomly alert you to creatures and places crossing over. Whether you are in a mall, asleep at home, having sex, whatever. You have to jump up and fight! or choose to continue about your business and have to search out the creature and fight it later or miss the chance to claim and explore the secret place. You can also build shops and fortifications and such.

There is a ton more needed and I think could be a fun project so I am looking for person(s) who might want to make this into a full fledged money making project.

[Cayle]

I’m also totally on an AR kick. My design-doc-in progress can be summed up as follows:

• Each player is a wizard/magic-user/whatever-they-want to call it. The key point is that they are sensitive to magic, because they have souls. Most people in the world are “soulless”.
• Magic does not affect the physical space that the soulless know.
• Wizards hide their magical nature from the soulless. It’s all a giant conspiracy.
• Guilds are called “secret societies”, following the whole conspirational note of the game.
• The connections between dimensions can be stronger and weaker, depending on the time and place.
• There is an in-depth physics underlying the magic system.
• Wizards use this magic to fight, conduct espionage, etc, with each other and with mobs.
• Quests might involve real travel and certain items are only available in certain parts of the world.

The magic system is basically the one I’d designed when I was still using Torque. The idea that you are always in-game, even when you go to the grocery store appeals to me. I also like the idea of certain epic quests not being something that you do spending an evening sitting on your butt at home.

[hallsofvallhalla]

That sounds awesome. I want to be kept up to date!!

[SpiritWebb]

Very awesome! Would love to be kept up to date on this as well!

[Cayle]

I've rebooted my design blog for the new project. I put my first post on there last week. Next up will probably be some techie posts as I’m working feverishly on plumbing.

• I'll probably talk about the choice of cloud services and how the different features, advantages and disadvantages of the platforms shaped my decision to build it on the Google App Engine, as well as my decision to abandon Angela for a much simpler, “spiritual” descendant.
• After that, I’ll discuss how stimuli work in the new game and compare it to how they work in Angela (short version: same concept, minus some bells and whistles that make the engine code 10x as complicated and would be difficult to port to GAE). I’ll probably dredge up my old “aliases” topic and discuss that; not least because I've already implemented aliases and disguises in the model and will probably be coding for it in the next couple of weeks.
• Oh and I've got to talk about my dynamic, multi-language text scheme; not least to document the darned thing for when I come back to the code later on and can’t remember how it was supposed to work.