Article: Urban games come to Magic City

Friday, October 7, 2005 / Daniel Walters, Contributing Writer
The official student newspaper of University of Alabama at Brimingham

London, San Francisco and New York are just a few of the cities that have hosted large-scale urban games that mix technology and fun on a city block scale.

Now, it’s Birmingham’s turn.

At the seventh annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, UAB’s Game Development Club, dubbed by members as UAB GameDev, teamed up with TechBirmingham to develop and produce Birmingham’s first large-scale urban game, Urban Othello.

“We had a great time. Twenty-seven people participated in four teams in what one might call an ‘urban recess game’ of Urban Othello” said Curtis Palmer of TechBirmingham.

Othello is a strategic board game which involves play by two parties on an eight-by-eight square grid with pieces that have two distinct sides. Pieces typically appear coin-like, with a light and a dark face.

The dark team must place a piece with the dark side up on the board, in such a position that at least one straight (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) line exists between the new piece and another dark piece, with one or more contiguous light pieces between them.

The game was played on Birmingham streets on a game board spanning approximately 36 square blocks. At each intersection, teams found three words they must demonstrate in a picture using anything or anyone at that corner.

“So if the three words are blue, man, and run, the team might find a man in a blue shirt and ask him to run, and take a quick picture,” said Mr. Palmer.

Teams were each given a T-Mobile Sidekick II to take and submit pictures. This allowed teams to roam the game board freely and not have to return to the Harbert Center after each picture.

“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 Mark Dillavou, a computer programmer for UAB’s mechanical engineering department and adviser for UAB GameDev.

UAB’s Game Developer’s Club worked with TechBirmingham to develop the software for the game. UAB students worked out the technical details and made Palmer’s game a reality in less than a month.

“Having it in Birmingham really puts Birmingham on the map as far as technology,” said Amy Dillavou, a UAB computer science major.