About the game
“Everybody who climbs up there leaves the mass behind that sweeps away and blurs any identity of producers or spectators (…) His [Ikarus’ - JH] elevated position makes him a voyeur. It gives him distance. It changes the world that bewitched people and made them ‘obsessed’ of it, in a text which one sees before one’s eyes”
(Michel de Certau, The Practice of Everyday Life).
City Slikkers is a Pervasive Game (alternatively Location Based Game) which takes place in the real-existing city. It is designed to connect a large number of players through-out the world and change the way the surroundings are seen. The central idea behind the concept is to give people the opportunity to symbolically interfere with the everyday urban environment and come into contact with previously unknown people.
By introducing a metaphorical recapture of the city‘s elements (buildings, squares, streets), a virtual reorganization of the urban space leads to a new relationship between the players and their environment. In the sacred space of the game world, the city is under their control thus giving the players a feeling of superiority. As the playing community will always be a minority they hereby form some kind of elitist, secret society which is based on knowledge, but not financial or political power. The interactions are only accessible through physical movement in the urban space and the use of a mobile device which acts as some kind of third eye. The players are always connected to a server and located using GPS technology. This allows an alternative view on the surrounding world and lets players manipulate objects to see and experience for others in realtime.
The players in action form packs, hordes, and gangs. They contrast with the institutionalized and organized space and give it spontaneity and dynamics. To develop into the leading group, players have to team up so that they are able to combine resources and strength.
The game progress is visualized through a 3-dimensional sculpture in a publicly installed videoinstallation, so that the game also affects these people not involved directly by giving them a hint that the situation is somehow different. Secret societies which, metaphorically of course, are about to take over the private and public urban space.
The game combines elements of strategy, role-playing, sports, social and tactical games, but in contrast to popular MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), the outcome of the actions as well as the new connections made between people, will affect normal life as the everyday city is no longer the same due to the players‘ experience.
City Slikkers is among the Top50 applications of the Google Android Developer Challenge 2008.
