Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Pervasive games in New York Manhattan: Pacman is played on the streets by using WiFi, cell-phones and custom software. (via Smartmobs)
'Pac-Manhattan is a large-scale urban game that utilizes the New York City grid to recreate the 1980's video game sensation Pac-Man(...) A player dressed as Pac-man will run around the Washington square park area of Manhattan while attempting to collect all of the virtual "dots" that run the length of the streets. Four players dressed as the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde will attempt to catch Pac-man before all of the dots are collected.
Pac-man and the ghosts will be tracked from a central location and their progress will be broadcast over the internet for viewers from around the world".
It's a project from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications graduate program.
Must be a fun sight, seeing a real-life Pacman and real-life ghosts running around the city!
The project kind of reminded me of the project/game "Can you see me now?" from Blast Theory, an artist group located in London. The game has been played in several cities already (Rotterdam, Sheffield). The game has runners running around a city while trying to catch/track down online players with handheld computers and satellite receivers. The players they are trying to catch are not physically present so you have to trust your equipment. Really interesting game. Fun to play too. Hope to find more games like that.
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