Android game turns Linux phones into paintball guns
Jan. 16, 2008
A new game for Google's Linux-based Android platform uses WiFi, GPS, and phone-camera technology, along with Google maps, to create a first-person shooter game you can play "anytime, anywhere -- against real people," according to publisher W2Pi Entertainment.
Once a user downloads and activates the Java-based WiFi Army, says W2Pi, the game scans for other users within 300 feet and sets up a direct WiFi connection, swapping photos of each player for identification purposes. The user tracks the other player via continually updated GPS coordinates on a Google map interface, and when a positive identification is made, the user can shoot to kill using the phone's camera. The photo is then uploaded to the W2Pi site to see if there's a match, and if so, the user is awarded points.
Chicago-based W2Pi eventually hopes to use facial recognition software to confirm the "kills," said the developer, 23-year-old Peter Wojtowicz, in an interview. He also announced some fresh news since the game was demonstrated at CES last week: W2Pi will create a single-player mode in addition to the WiFi-based version.
"We will create artificial targets for them so they can practice," said Wojtowicz, who often goes by his screen name, Peter Whatanitch [Editor's note: reminiscent of Wanda Tinasky's psuedonym, Ivan Awfulitch]. WiFi Army will be free for the downloading, he said, but different weapons, armor, ammunition, radar jammer, and grenades downloaded from the WiFi Army site will cost a few cents each.
"Each weapon would have a different benefit feature, so a handgun, say, would have a range of fifty feet, whereas an Uzi might have a sniper scope for longer range," said Wojtowicz. "In the beta, it will be die or no die, but eventually we want to add different levels of player status [severity of injuries]. Players will also be able to create and join guilds on our site, so you could have an army of a hundred users that could play team vs. team."
Wojtowicz plans to eventually offer prize money for high scores, as well as set up tournaments and make the site into an advertising-driven social network site for gamers, somewhat like Halo's bungie.net. Other plans include voice-over-WiFi, avatars, privacy controls, and developing a virtual reality, multiplayer online version.
The public can sign up now for a beta, but each city will initially be limited to 500 users.
Slow going on the Android front
Wojtowicz says that the Google Android platform, which is supported by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), offers advantages over platforms such as Windows Mobile, or the Apple iPhone, primarily because of its open source nature. Another benefit, he said, is that there's less competition -- in fact, none at this point, with Google having released only a "Preview" release of the SDK so far. In addition, for location-aware games such as this one, he appreciates the strong integration of GPS and Google Maps.
Yet, the technical details have been slow to arrive, he says, and it's frustrating having to depend on Android's FAQ page and Android developer forums to try to answer questions, Wojtowicz said. "The lack of direct communication with Google is a problem," he said. "They answer the FAQs, but having someone to talk to would be useful. I'm sure they're swamped, trying to get those phones out as fast as possible, but we're working in the dark here, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. We still don't have the modules for WiFi or Bluetooth, so we've been going around that and building those modules on Windows Mobile. It would be nice to have a developer's kit."
Also missing at this point is officially supported Android development hardware, although various Android developer forums have recently publicized successful hacks of Android onto PDAs and ARM development boards.
W2Pi is testing its WiFi Army game on the gPhone-like Glofiish M700 (Click for details)
Google is still saying a developer kit release won't happen until Q2, says Wojtowicz, but he is looking forward to a February conference in Barcelona for some more clues about the platform. In the meantime, for testing purposes, W2Pi is using the Windows Mobile-based Glofiish M700 (pictured at right) from E-Ten, which Wojtowicz said is "very similar" to the hotly anticipated Google Android development hardware. W2Pi had started developing on Windows Mobile earlier in 2007, but found the results to be unsatisfactory, he said. He was looking to develop on another platform such as Symbian when the Android announcement was made, and they switched gears. He plans to "eventually" (there's that word again) expand to both platforms.
Wojtowicz was quite interested in this week's announcement from A la Mobile, that it was demonstrating its Linux-based Convergent Linux Platform (CLP) phone stack working with Google's Android APIs (application programming interfaces). The demonstration appears to show how Android's upper level, Java-enabled framework and APIs can be easily integrated with CPE's kernel, drivers, and middleware to create a "complete" Android software offering. So far, he hasn't been able to get through to A la Mode, though, he said.
As for financing, W2Pi is hoping to start out with a prize grant from Google, which Wojtowicz says is going to award $10 million in prize money to 100 Android developers, split up in two contest rounds this year. Each winner will receive $25,000 and be eligible to compete for awards of $275,000 and $100,000 each.
More information on Wifi Army may be available here.
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A new game for Google's Linux-based Android platform uses WiFi, GPS, and phone-camera technology, along with Google maps, to create a first-person shooter game you can play "anytime, anywhere -- against real people," according to publisher W2Pi Entertainment. 
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