This blog entry is mainly supposed to be read by our interested players, to give you an idea where we’re going with GPS Mission. These are the most important changes coming up:

There will be a GPS Mission client that costs money.

Some of the best new features will be available through a new iPhone App that won’t be free. At the end of the proverbial day GPS Mission needs a business model to exist.

The current free version will continue to be available as “GPS Mission Light” (and we’ll also continue to improve it).

We’ll stick to the following principles

• We’ll never charge for content that was provided by the community. All features that are required to play missions created by the community will be available in the free client. All the community generated missions are really quite sacred to us – this is your content and the heart of GPS Mission as it is today. It won’t be affected.

• All features that were free until now will remain free (i.e. available in the free version). No previously existing features will be removed from the free version.

• You will never be charged anything only because you registered. Registration is free. You will only have to pay for stuff if you explicitly buy it (e.g. a paid App in the App Store).

The new features will be available for the iPhone only.

This is a matter of resources. We’re simply way too underfunded to develop a quality product for more platforms. Currently, more than 85% of our users are iPhone users. The other platforms will continue to be supported, but for the time being no new features will be added. I know a lot of our hardcore community members use Windows Mobile or Nokia phones. You will still be able to play - an we also will fix bugs etc, but the new features won't be there. This was no easy decision.

New good stuff

So, what are the improvements? What’s going to be in the next releases? I want to point out a few key points in our vision.

First and foremost, we want GPS Mission to be able to grow into a location-based entertainment platform. To keep things flexible and future-proof, GPS Mission will allow turning on and off different games that have different game elements and game mechanics. The user-created missions of today will constitute one of these games (a free game or a “content layer”). Another game that will be delivered together with the new iPhone App will be called “Ghost Patrol” that runs in a different content layer.

We are working on making GPS Mission a persistent virtual reality that is superimposed over the real world. A location-based game platform should allow all players to see the same virtual reality and interact with the same game elements at the same spots. In previous versions of GPS Mission the gold stashes that can be found at random locations already behaved in this way. Two players standing next to the same gold stash both see it on their map. If one of the players picks up the stash, it’s gone for the other player also. Both players are using the same game reality.

Inventory & virtual items

In the next release we’ll use the same principle to introduce virtual items to the GPS Mission world. Every player (using the new iPhone client) will have an inventory of items that he/she is carrying. Just in the same way you might know it from a role-playing game that you play on your PC or console.

Apart from finding and picking up gold, you can now pick up any kind of item that plays a role in the game you are currently playing. This may be a powerful sword, an anti-ghost weapon (in Ghost Patrol) or a power-up that allows picking up gold from a longer distance. Items you pick up are added to your inventory. As it is a location-based game, you can pick up items only if they are at your current physical position.

A player might pick up a magic ring on the Millennium Bridge in London. Other players in London won’t be able to see the ring any more. It is now in that player’s inventory. The next day this player flies over to Hamburg and drops the ring on a parking lot at the airport terminal. The ring is now in Hamburg. Everyone who happens to play in that vicinity will be able to see the ring on the map and be able to pick it up. Players could meet to exchange items, when standing next to each other.

Items in GPS Mission will behave exactly the same way you know it from other adventure or role-playing games – only located in the real world.

 
Ghost Patrol

“The world of ghosts is revolting against humankind! Scary creatures are moving through our cities – only you can stop them!”

The first additional location-based game – apart from the missions you already know - included with the new GPS Mission client will be “Ghost Patrol”. Ghost Patrol is a nice little game that utilizes a number of the features mentioned above.

In Ghost Patrol you’ll fight geo-located non-player creatures (NPCs, i.e. Ghosts) moving around the map. You can attack the ghosts with the weapons in your inventory if you are close enough. If you kill a ghost it will drop treasure (gold and souls) that you can pick up.

Souls can be traded for better weapons (social criticism comes free). Improved firepower is needed to fight stronger ghosts.

Some ghosts carry keys that can be used to open safes located at certain spots. The safes contain useful items for your ghost hunting endeavors.

In the end you’ll be powerful enough to attack the rare Ghost King – killing the Ghost King will make you a Ghost Master, complete with trophy and high-score entry.



Ghost Patrol runs on the same client as the GPS missions that you know, it’s like a different layer of reality – in the future you will be able to switch between different games and content layers with a single GPS Mission client.

Just like Ghost Patrol other games will be added to GPS Mission over the next months, without the need to get new client software on your phone. In this way, GPS Mission will feature more and more location-based games with more complex game mechanics. We’re on our way towards creating a platform for interactive location-based entertainment content. At some point some of this game content will come from third-parties, our first small cooperative project with a renowned game developer is already underway.

Along with these major features there are a lot of small improvements in the next release. Most of them will also be available in the free version. I don’t want to compile a complete list in this blog post but for example finally the missions you have completed will be marked in the mission list, something that was requested a lot by the community. Yay!


In the next months, we’ll continue to improve both the free and the paid client trying to create an interesting virtual playground outside. Community missions and community content will continue to play a major role – in addition to that new game content will appear.

To put it in a cheesy marketing claim: Expect to collect, communicate, cooperate, play and explore wherever you are! – No, really.