Novo Mobile game concept competition

This competition has been made in co-operation with Novo Group plc. Novo will be responsible for the prizes and general organizing of this competition.

COMPETITION RULES AND TARGET

Assembly and the event main sponsor Novo would like to invite you to design new concepts and ideas for mobile games. The competition is open for everyone, you don't need to come to the party place in order to take part to this competition.

Your goal is to design, on an idea or concept level, a game that can be run on some mobile platform. A good example migh be your everyday mobile phone or Compaq Ipaq. You don't need to produce any code, only the idea and concept of the game.

Some assumptions for the game:

You have the location information of your mobile device and also the device, that can run such a game. Location information here means the current location of the mobile device. For example, you could have the knowledge that the device is "in Helsinki, near the main post office" or then a set of spesific coordinates are given, depending of the location method.

Location information can be acquired from:

a) GPS device, for example Benefon ESC!, Compaq Ipaq or Nokia 9210 Communicator with GPS device attached to it. If you have some other device or set of devices in mind, you can suggest it to us. Actually, the technical aspects of the devices are not so important in this competitions, since it's all about the idea. The accuracy of GPS positioning is about 10-20 meters.

b) Your cellular operator can pinpoint your whereabouts within 200-300 meters. This is done by your mobile operator. The accuracy is not so good today, but will improve in the forthcoming years.

c) the place can be also something that the user himself knows, for example a known place or street address. The location information doesn't necessarily need to be acquired from a device, but can be user "inputed"!

Some important issues:

The funtionality of the game must be based of the presumption, tha the location will be available in 5 seconds (access time). You have access to full service WAP and SMS centres, where you can transfer information to and out of the mobile device (for example to some server).

You have access to global digital map service, where you get world map in digital format. It includes all land and sea areas in the world.

The objective of this competition:

The objective is to design and IDEA (or concept) of a mobile game, that uses location based services. The location information can be inputted in any three ways mentioned above. Also, it can utilize digital maps.

The game can send information to a server, where the data can be handled or altered, by following simple rules or by player interaction (or all of the above). Because this is just an idea competition, there is no need to do any coding or design servers or architectures. But if you use any servers, mention them in the concept paper in short way.

An example of possible game:

A classical treasure hunt game begins where many ships are sailing the mediterranean sea. The captain of each ship has access to GPS device, where he gets the ships current position information. The captain can then send that information to a gameserver (for example via SMS messages). The server has all the information about the mediterranean sea and its surroundings. At the same time, the game has calculated many randon spots inside the sea maps: various treasures has been inserted to random locations on the shoreline. When the captain sends the info, the server replies. If the ship is in 1 km radius of a treasure, that treasure will be found by the captain. When the game ends, the ship that has collected more valuable treasures is the winner. The difficulty of the game can be increased by adding different interactive features to the game, for example dropping mines etc

This is just a simple example, we need you to find more original ideas. Do not send anything to the competition relating to this example, since we are lookign for fresh ideas.

The Rules:

• The competition is organized by Novo in co-operation with Assembly Organizing
• The competition time is between 9.7.2001 - 31.7.2001 (at 19:00 finnish time)
• You must leave your entries via email to address [email protected] before the 31st July deadline. The concept (or idea) must be in readable format for example MS Word, MS Powerpoint or a collection of web pages (HTML). You must present the idea and the logic of the game, and some game structures as well. Also you need to explain how the game really works.
• You can add graphics or screen captures to the document.
• Remember to leave the your name, address, telephone numerb and email address with the entry. If they are not found, the entry is disqualified automatically.
• Please write a short 500 character short description of the game to the "header page".
• The concepts or ideas are not going to be published by Assembly or Novo (they are really your ideas, publish them if you wish by yourself). All rights belong to the respective inventors of the idea. However Novo has the rights to buy the rights for the idea with 50.000 FIM, if it so wishes to do.
• The Jury, which will decide the winners, will be appointed by Novo. One juror must be from Assembly Organizing.
• The jury has the rights to change the prizes and have the option not to give out prizes, if there are too few good entries. The jury has to make this decision when all jurors agree to this.
• You must be 18 to take part to this competition. Finnish law will be followed in case of disputes. If you are under 18 and wish to take part, please send your parent's permission to take part to this competition. You can do it by sending the permision in written to Assembly Organizing, Mobilecompo, PL 160, 00381 Helsinki, Finland.
• The organizer of the competition is not responsible of possible taxation. This is up to you to inform your local tax authorities and pay your taxes.
• By sending the entry to [email protected] you accept all the rules of this competition.

1. Benefon ESC! GPS/GSM phone
2. 2500 FIM in cash
3. 1000 FIM in cash

Novo is not a company who is developing games. Novo offers professional location based services for other companies, for example digital maps from the whole world. So what we are looking for is some nice ideas that we might be interested of making a demonstration to our own use. And we think games are one of the best ways to express new ideas within this field. If Novo does make the game, we will pay you for the use of the idea. See the rules.

Note! As it is the idea/concept that counts, there is no need to code anything. When looking thought the entries, the jury will keep two things in mind:

- The originality of the idea
- The functionality of the game (and its description!)

This is the first time when Assembly is organizing such a game concept/idea competition. Your feedback is desired and wished for, since we want to develop these kinds of compos further. Please send it to the same address you'd normally send the competition entries.

Regards,

Assembly & Novo