Article: Urban gaming takes to city streets

Teams use camera phones to compete in board-game style challenges downtown

Friday, September 23, 2005 / KELLI HEWETT TAYLOR, News staff writer

It’s been a hit in London, New York and San Francisco. Now cell phone-based, outdoor “urban gaming” comes to Birmingham Saturday during the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival. “Having it in Birmingham really puts Birmingham on the map as far as technology,” said Amy Dillavou, 21, a UAB computer science major who played her first test game this week. She plans to compete Saturday. Built on a four-year history of large-scale urban games in other cities, it uses strategies from the board game Othello.

It pits two teams against each other on a real-life game board, or grid. It is set along 36 downtown blocks, or intersections. Each team of four to six players uses a camera phone with Internet capability to download “challenges” at specific sites. On the city sidewalks, the teams act out their given scenes, based on three words. A team member snaps a photo with the phone and e-mails it to downtown judges for verification. Teams can track their competition on the picture phone. The team that “wins” the most intersections by acting out the scenes wins the game. T-Mobile has donated Sidekick II personal communications devices for the event.

“It resonates with the 18-30-year-old males and females,” said Curtis Palmer, 41, of TechBirmingham, who brainstormed the local game. “When I describe it to people in their 50s, they look at me with blank stares.” TechBirmingham is a not-for-profit organization that boosts technology-based business in Birmingham. Palmer based his idea on two other urban games, Gridlockd and Fiasco, both based in New York. Organizers are still looking for teams, who will compete in one-hour sessions from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Games start at the Harbert Center at 2019 Fourth Ave. N. Pictures from Tuesday’s test game and free registration forms are available at http://www.techwalk.org .

Mark Dillavou, Amy’s husband, and several UAB students worked out the technical details and made Palmer’s game a reality in less than a month. “I think this is cool because it is taking video gaming to a new level – you can be outside and play and get exercise,” said Dillavou, 22, a computer programmer for UAB’s mechanical engineering department and adviser for UAB’s Game Developer’s Club.

Palmer is also planning more games. “I really hope as we start to do these more often that we will gain recognition for Birmingham among the other major cities doing this,” Palmer said.