Final Project

For my final project I created a map that showed the international availability of McDonalds sandwiches and burgers. I was originally going to do the entire list, but since the list was so extensive, it would have been very hard to include every single menu item on the poster.

I came up with the idea of this project after looking up the international availability of products, and saw that it was such a diverse list of items, that I wanted to come up with a way to show what items are available where. It's very interesting that everywhere you go McDonald's is suppose to look the same and have the same general feeling, but they offer different menu items based on whats ingredients are available and based on religious beliefs.

Since the list of available items was so long, I decided to narrow it down to just the sandwiches and burgers. After presenting my poster to the class and discussing it, I realized there were a lot of things I should have included on my poster. I lost a lot of information that I wanted to include

with my original idea. Although I was at first pretty happy with my poster, there are now several things about it I would like to change:

- Some of the names of the sandwiches/burgers aren't listed. I would have liked to include the names of all the different sandwiches, and could have easily added some text showing the name

of each kind of sandwich.

- Some of the locations on the map aren't very clear. It's a little confusing as to what country is what, and what country each item is specifically available in. I could have created borders for each country and/or labeled the names of some of the countries that don't seem as clear as others.

- There is nothing showing that certain items are only available because of religion. I could have included something showing that they don't serve beef products in India, and have kosher food available in Jerusalem.

Here is the final poster that I got printed:

Location Based Gaming

Location based gaming is any game of which involves the players location in order to play the game. Many location-based games involve GPS to know exactly where you are located. Most location based games require a smart phone to play, since they are programmed a specific way and need to use a smart phone interface, although there are still some where you can just use a normal GPS device. There are a countless number of location-based games already created, but some of the popular and interesting ones would be geocaching, tourality, blackbeards treasure, and pac-manhattan.

Geocaching is somewhat of a treasure hunting game that only requires a GPS device. Geocaches are user made and usually consist of a tiny box or container with a pen, logbook, and sometimes other little trinkets. After creating a geocache, one simply goes online to a geocaching site, (geocaching.com) and posts the GPS coordinates of the place they decided to hide their geocache. You can also look and see where other people have placed their geocaches and go find different ones. Some of the main rules with geocaching are to always sign the log book, and if you are going to take something out of it, make sure you put something else back in. Not all geocaches have a physical box or container, but some are just meant to remember some type of event or create awareness of information about an area.

Tourality is a real life scavenger hunt which requires the use of a smartphone with GPS. In this game, the goal is to reach different spots by running, biking, driving, bussing, or any means of transportation, before others have reached the spot. This game requires user-generated content in order to play, so points of interest for the game can easily be set using Google Maps. In this game, after reaching a point of interest, you are rewarded gold, which can be traded for gadgets to use within the game. There are also locations in the game galled “goodie spots”, which can have things at them like gold and other power-ups, or there could be a thief waiting there to steal all the gold you’ve collected so far in the game.

Blackbeard’s treasure is another type of location-based game that requires GPS and a smart phone. This is a treasure hunting game, but you are searching for virtual treasure. In the game, there are different level treasure chests, and you must be the level the chest requires to open it. Users in the game place chests on a map, each chest containing sometimes keys to open other chests and other treasures. As you find more treasure, open the chests, and bury more treasure, your experience rises, possibly advancing you to the next level. The treasures you find in the chest eventually allow you to complete quests, as well as battle other Blackbeard players in real time.

Pac-Manhattan is a location-based game that was developed by NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications graduate program, to play in Manhattan, New York. This game uses the cities grid to recreate a game of pac-man. In game play, this game starts with one person dressed as pac-man, who will run around Manhattan while trying to eat all the virtual “food” that are placed along the streets. Four other players are dressed as the ghosts, who try to catch pac-man before he collects all the virtual “food”. This game uses cell-phone contact, Wi-Fi Internet, and custom software to track the pac-man game, which is broadcasted over the internet for viewers all over the world.

In conclusion, after researching a variety of different location-based games, it’s interesting how different games use locations differently. Some games require a smart phone, while some like geocaching, do not. Some require a real-time meet up place and a large group of people. Other games have you trying to reach a goal and play against other people you’ve never even met. It’s interesting to see how diverse location-based gaming can be, and see how it evolves over time as technology gets better and better.

Sources:

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_gaming

-http://www.tourality.com/what-is-tourality/

-http://www.appbackr.com/app/blackbeard-s-treasure

-http://pacmanhattan.com/about.php