City Slikkers, another of Google’s top 50 picks in the Google Android Developer Challenge, is a pervasive or location-based game that merges with the world of social networking. Akin to a bizarre sociological experiment, City Slikkers is “designed to connect a large number of players throughout the world and change the way the surrounding…give people the opportunity to symbolically interfere with the everyday urban environment and come into contact with previously unknown people”.
Based in a real-world city, City Slikkers is a virtual reorganization or urban elements such as buildings and streets, a reorganization in which each player has total control. Interactions require movement through an actual real-world physical space with a mobile phone, through which they are tracked by GPS allowing players to manipulate virtual world objects, changing the real-world experience for others in real-time.
A completely unregulated virtual world, devoid of politics and hierarchies, player team up in groups in order to leverage each others strengths in the quest for ultimate power. Game progress is “visualized through a 3-dimensional sculpture in a publicly installed videoinstallation”, and takes on many characteristics of popular MMORPG or Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games with the added feature of the online gaming experience affected the player’s real-world experience.
Sounds pretty abstract I know, but the boys behind City Slikkers were pretty mum on the details when I contacted them. We’ll keep you updated. connect a large number of players through-out the world and change the way the surroundings are seen
