LEGOLAND: A GPS Adventure Game Exergaming

40 games
1000s of landmarks
One Great Big World.

So goes the tagline for Legoland the GPS Adventure game. If you're headed to LegoLand i in Florida, you and your kids can get a jump on the action of building by experiencing augmented-reality features as you drive.

I have not heard a lot of feedback from this mobile exergame yet, but I imagine as the summer heats up and Pokemon Go starts its second summer of fantastic folly - we'll hear more.

LEGOLAND: A GPS Adventure Game | Digital Buzz Blog:

Calling all backseat drivers! Join Captain Brickbeard, Surfer Girl, the World’s Greatest Adventurer, and the Good Knight for a road trip of epic proportions with Quest to LEGOLAND®, the all new GPS adventure game built for kids. 

Kids can follow a LEGO® Minifigure on a route to LEGOLAND Florida that’s mapped in real-time using GPS. Along the way, they’ll unlock themed missions, answer trivia, and learn about the world around them as landmarks they pass pop up on-screen right before their eyes. With 40 total games and more than 1,000 pieces of contextual trivia, what you see in the app depends on the route you take so every trip is a unique adventure for the entire family.

Click here to read more of ExerGame Lab's archived posts involving research studies. 

Dustcloud Brings Laser Six Shooters to a Live RPG #Mobile #Exergame

The DUSTCLOUD is a mobile, first-person shooter (FPS) game played using GPS tracking (+ZigBee communications) and electronic ray guns called DUSTERS. It’s a mobile  #exergame played with others locally but can be played anywhere, by anyone, at any time. Your character and skill levels are seen in your player profiles as each team has roles that need to be filled like Broker and Cleaner. The object is to shoot other team members with your different colored (blue, green, red) guns (Dusters)  before they shoot you. If you get shot, you lose your Speks (5 cents per shot) but the other person will capture your victim's Speks. Paired to your mobile device via Bluetooth, this game promises to "track opponents, create alliances, see your friends, call on opponents for a match," call in reinforcements and bring an urban RPG game play to a whole new level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exergaming Points 2 Ponder (ExP2P)

• Now imagine pairing these Dusters with Google Glass to bring immersive augmented-reality gaming (ARG) to a whole new level as previously highlighted in my Race Yourself #mobile #exergame blog post which used Google Glass #wearabletech to augment your workout (against your own data or that of others)
• The combination of technologies including #wearabletech and #activitytrackers is truly a great step forwards and combining it with good stories and changing environments might increase player engagement and maybe one day surpass the 750,000 Zombies Run players currently out there.

Using Speks costs cash money at $.05 each via PayPal, so there’s an incentive to use them wisely. They’re stored in your paired device where you can reload them into your Duster. But, if you’re a good player you won’t have to buy them very often. When someone is dusted:
• Their Dusters are switched off for thirteen seconds.• The Speks in their Dusters are captured by the player who has dusted them.• Their positional marker (POI) disappears from the iOS and Android app on their phone.• Their efficiency percentage decreases incrementally on the Dustcloud database.• Their Mini Dossier is sent to the Dustbin in the Dossier of the player who has dusted them.

Click here to read more of ExerGame Lab's archived posts involving GPS Exergames

Related articles

• Dustcloud: Taking Laser Tag outdoors without the lasers
• FIVIS: Bicycle Safety Simulator #exergame
• Oculus Rift + Leap Motion = Shark Punch + Game of Thrones #Exergaming VR
• Tappy Fit Uses Fitbit Fitness Data for Rewards in Flappy Bird-like Mobile #exergame #GFH

Virtual Relay Exergame

This concept of a connected and social physical experience mediated by technology certainly has lots of exergame potential especially if they end up building in ARG, leader-boards, and game elements.

Virtual relay - DesignBlizzard

How it works
The V.relay is a baton for virtual relays. By connecting and joining to a community website, you could search for relays of your interest, the time you want to start, the team you want to join.
The baton receives the data from the computer and gives a signal when it's time for your turn to run in the team. The GPS signal lets the relay continue on virtually all around the world. And also gives you feedback of the distance/time/heartbeat rate/runners left during your run.
The main aspect or the V.relay is to give people more motivation for exercise by making them feel connected.

LocoMatrix Brings Gaming Back Outside (GPS)

Locomatrix's tagline clearly takes a swipe at the stereotypical sedentary gamer, "Jumpers for goalposts, for the Wii generation, Bringing Gaming Back Outside".  I'm not sure what's been happening since this was first announced in 2008 and if they've bothered to port over the games to iPhone or Android but it would make sense since so many newer devices already have GPS built in.

Be sure to check out the 2011 Games for Health Conference track on Mobile Gaming

Exergame Benfits

• Any number of players.
• Any size playing field.
• Customizable games.
• Create your own games.

Exergame Concerns

• LocoMatrix is not exactly screen-free as in Swinxs, because you have to use your mobile phone with GPS or with a GPS unit to play the games. I would say it is console-free and free-roaming but not screen-free.
• Obviously using large areas of play will be a huge concern for supervision/safety reasons.
• Handset compatibility

Click here for more posts on GPS in the ExerGame Lab archives.