Video Preview of Google Android game
The Google Android mobile phone platform announced recently gave rise to more questions than answers. After months of speculation about Google working on their own mobile phone, what we got instead was a series of mobile phone related technologies that left everyone with both a sense of anti-climax, and also the burning question of "yes, but what exactly does it do?!"
We were all yearning to see a few applications (not to mention a few mobile phones based on the new platform) to see what Android could offer that couldn't be done with existing mobile phones.
Fortunately, we haven't had to wait too long to find out, as a sneak preview of a new mobile phone game developed specifically for the Google Android platform has emerged.
You can see the video of the new Google Android game after the jump.
As you can see from the video, the game, called Wi-Fi Army from developers W2Pi Entertainment, focuses heavily on Android's ability to let the developer work closely with the GPS device of a phone, Google maps and the phone's camera. Wi-Fi Army is basically a shoot em up game, but rather than relying on 3D graphics, it actually pits real humans against each other in a real life situation.
The game starts with the user looking for someone to play with. The Android phone will search for other Wi-Fi Army-equipped Android phones within a 300 foot radius (using a combination of GPS and triangulation from WI-Fi basestations), and will inform you of other potential players in your area.
Once you select the person to play with, you're sent their profile, and you then have to track them down. Shooting them involves taking their photo, which will automatically be uploaded to the Wi-Fi Army server, and a point given to you if the server recognizes the person who's picture you've taken.
In other words, you're using the camera to literally shoot the other player in real life.
With its extensive use of Google Maps and a mobile phone's GPS receiver, Wi-Fi Army is a true Augmented Reality game, and will be the first such game to make it out of the lab if it's ever released. It also reveals the power of the Android platform, as it makes extensive use of a handset's core features, including its GPS unit, Wi-Fi receiver and camera, in a way that can't be done on current handsets, as the handset manufacturers only provided limited programmatic access to these features.
Wi-Fi Army does have a few problems to overcome: for example, there's a potential lack of players, particularly in areas that have few people with Google Android phones. Another issue is privacy, as unless you're playing with friends, you're playing a rather creepy real life game with complete strangers, who have your photo and are actively searching for you. This certainly raises the tension above the levels you'd get in a video game equivalent, but this has the potential of leading to some true life horror stories as players get a little carried away literally hunting each other down.
Those concerns aside, it makes an effective demonstration of the innovative new services that are being planned around the new platform, and how Google Android has the potential to unlock a lot more functionality from your phone than was available before. Wi-Fi Army is a great concept, and doubtless will be just the first of a new genre of location-based games and services, making the new Google Android platform one to watch in 2008.
[Source: WiFiArmy]
