Tuesday, July 15, 2014

My Latest Game

"Only Happy When It Rains" sang Garbage. But I'm not. Only happy when it rains that is. Not garbage.

I seem to play my tech games obsessively. And then get bored and move on.

My latest is Munzee. A '21st Century Scavenger Hunt' as they say. Basically it's Geocaching without the scrabbling through thorny bushes. If you believe the forums it's also the bad-boy young upstart that is little better than formalised vandalism. Cool. What's not to like?

Munzee works around QR codes - you go to the location shown on the map - and there's the Munzee. You scan it. You get points. You move on to the next one. If you haven't yet fired up the app and need more convincing then read on...

It has these benefits:

  1. Points. Any psychologist will tell you that males need points based games so they can see if they have won or not (and by won or not I obviously mean crushed the puny feeble opposition). Points are good. You can measure yourself against others. More points is better. You get the idea.
  2. Easy play. Fire up the app, locate a Munzee, scan, get points (see 1 above).
  3. Gluing and Sticking. Now you might not expect this to be a factor but when you can generate your own Munzee codes, print them, laminate them, attach magnets to them to deploy in sneaky locations (such as under gate hinges) there is a whole new 'Blue Peter' aspect to the game that is genuinely fun (if you like that sort of thing). I went through about 5 generations of Munzees from feeble low-tech attempts on blotting paper that disintegrated in the first rain (who would have thought?) to my latest generation "colour-printed-on-waterproof-paper-laminated-in-250-micron-laminate" that will definitely withstand a direct thermo-nuclear attack. These babies will still be around wen I am dust.
  4. Clan wars... oh these need their own article... trust me.
  5. Deploying. "Grow the Map" is the term. When you're a premium member (having paid $30 for the year) you can deploy your own Munzee, get points for the original deployment (see 1) and then get more points whenever someone else captures it. (See 1).
When I first started Munzee there were precisely 3 Munzee in my home town... If you would care to view the local are now it's here: Horsham Munzee. What used to be 3 little green flags has now grown (and is growing still). Pretty much all my own work - although I have to give a big shout out to my Munzee buddy Leveler who lives in he next town but is frequently in Horsham has done a fantastic job of adding new and interesting Munzee here. 

So far I've deployed over 500 Munzee and am still going strong. You can keep up with my stats here: Pardlerum.
See you in the field.