Life in Progress

Coworker talking about Farmville-related carpal tunnel syndrome. “I felt pain when playing, but didn’t want to stop.”

A fellow online gamer (Modern Warfare 2) had the unintentionally creepy name “deepinsideboys69”…might wanna pick a new name. :|

Origin System’s “Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar” (1984) was the first epic role-playing game I ever played, and I must’ve spent hundreds—maybe even thousands—of hours playing it in the mid-Eighties on my beloved Commodore 64. It was a groundbreaking game, introducing morality (and the maintenance of it) to right wrongs throughout the land.

Then there was the music. The C64’s SID sound chip has a signature sound that, to this day, people still use to make music. (Google “SID music” to see what I mean.) On top of that, I enjoyed the simple graphics of the game, which left my imagination to flesh out how the world appeared. Before this game, I played Infocom’s text-only ZORK, which let every reader’s/player’s minds imagine what was described in words. I never did complete either game.

Fast forward to 2010. My mind still wanders to Ultima IV, and wondering when I’d ever have the time to finish it. Well, I still haven’t figured that out, but at least the barrier of accessibility is gone, thanks to the xu4 Sourceforge project, which blows up the original game from its 320x200 size to 640x400, and enhances the graphics so they won’t appear like complete piles of pixelated garbage. Great work, and I look forward to finding the time to finish the Quest.

Location-based services (LBS) are continuing the recent years’ trend of making the sharing of personal information and connections easier and easier. And though there have been predecessors to the two services I’m mulling over, these appear to be the ones that click with me. But which one to choose?

foursquare

I’ve been using foursquare since November 19, 2009, finding it fun to check in wherever I go and accumulate points, badges, or even mayorships for being the person who checks in the most at a particular place. When you and your friends do this at the same time, then it really gets interesting, turning it into a competitive social game. But the best part about foursquare is giving or trying out tips on what to do, eat, or see at different places around town. In this way, you’re really encouraged to get out and about.

You’ve likely seen coverage of foursquare from various tech or more mainstream publications, and my seat-of-the-pants, finger-in-the-wind measurement might indicate that foursquare is the service with the most popularity. foursquare also shares some of the same investors who back Twitter. Businesses are even starting to get the potential of foursquare’s power of attraction.

The downside? Since it runs on the honor system, it’s not hard for the less scrupulous to game the system, which makes the experience less fun for everyone. foursquare is also dependent on entering physical addresses when adding locations not in their database, only using GPS to roughly figure out where you are in town. Think about all the duplicate entries from formatting and spelling inconsistencies, and the ways people can use this to their advantage to rack up undeserved points.

Update (November 25, 2009): I’m now a foursquare Super User, which means I can access their database to reconcile the inconsistencies I mentioned above! I tweeted about this post, and foursquare told me on Twitter to send them my suggestions and input. That is really great, letting the users have a hand in building the success of the service.

Gowalla

Then there’s Gowalla, the Austin-based LBS with similar gameplay, and whose iPhone app and web site are beautifully done. I just started using this on November 23, 2009.

There are no mayorships to be had or usurped (which some people consider a negative competitive aspect of foursquare), but you do find and receive items in various spots around the city. If you create a new spot and drop an item there, you’re named the founder.

I’m still learning more about Gowalla, but can see that the double-edged sword of Gowalla is its GPS dependence. On the plus side, you actually have to be at the location you claim to be at to check in. On the minus side, if you forget to check in and find you have a weak GPS signal indoors, you’ll have to go back outside to check in. Another minus is that any users without GPS are automatically excluded.

Update: Gowalla just upped its game, according to this Nov. 24 Tech Crunch article.

What do you think?

Do you use and prefer one of these LBSs, or a different one? If so, why? And finally, which one do you think will prevail?