Outdoor addiction - GPS games is for everyone

GPS games is where you, with the help of your GPS in you phone (probably) move around outdoors to accomplish something, maybe to collect points, complete achievements, discover things, measure time between two spots, ....

As people tend to be more and more sitting indoors, maybe GPS games is something that could get them to go outdoors? GPS games have had such effects, like the success with geocaching or even more Pokémon Go which was a great hit.

Now there are many more GPS games than the ones mentioned, and I believe there is a GPS games for more or less everyone, although there are no GPS game that fit everyone.

I have played quite a few GPS games, with geocaching the one I have played the longest. Have written much about geocaching, so below I write about two other GPS games that do tend to play every day.

Besides geocaching, I mainly do two GPS games that are both created here in Sweden. They are both GPS games that work fine with having routes on your way to work - you can visit the same spot every day if you like. So I do these as a daily routine, while geocaching is more visiting new places, so that is mostly when I am being touristic.

Turf

Turf is an app game (on Android and Iphone) mainly for people who ride bikes. You go visit spots (zones) around the city that you capture to score some points. As long as no one else captures your zone it does also give a small bonus to you.

The game is played in rounds from lunch the 1st Sunday in one month to the 1st Sunday the next month, so 4 or 5 weeks. Each rounds is a world wide competition, where the top gets some kind of prizes. You also gets different kind of (virtual) medals for achievements, like number of all time captures, visiting different number of regions, .... Has been going for 9 years, and some are very dedicated to this game. (I also wrote about turf a long time ago...)

Note! Turf is not available in all countries. In those countries that it has not been released the number of zones is very limited, mainly at world heritages and tourist sites.

Towers

Towers is a game the was officially released this year as an Android app, although I have being doing beta testing for a year.

It does have some similarities to Turf as you do capture things, in this case virtual Towers, but here you do not get any scores for keeping them. Instead you can capture it again later, with lower scores for doing it if you do it later the same day.

Another big difference compared to Turf is that it is the players that place the towers. To do this you do need some resources, and you get some resources by doing captures. You can also upgrade towers to higher levels (like Ingress) but that cost resources. Higher level towers also gives you different kind of resources. As the players do the placement (compared to turf where the game masters place out zones) there is also a restriction so that no tower may be closer than 500 meter to another tower - after all this is to get you outdoors doing some moving around.
As might be gathered the towers do tend to end up close to turf zones, so making it an excellent possibility to combine the two GPS games.


See you around!

It was a long time since I last wrote anything here... Oh, I do still do geocaching, but not that much. 

So what to do with this blogg? Well I think I might still use it, but I probably will broaden it a bit, to maybe cover things that I find interesting. Although I might restrict that to hobbies of mine. Below I list a couple of subjects that might show up. Hm, maybe I need to rename this blogg - is that possible?

Science Fiction

Science Fiction (or SF for short) is something I have been interested in for a very long time. Earlier this year my local SF club (Linköpings Science Fiction-förening) celebrated its 30th birthday with a party at the Redin Mansion. Still going strong with club meetings several times each month. The club has always been into the SF litterature, kind of high brow, but in recent years TV series have been a big part of the monthly club meetings.

For my own part I can see my SF interest show up in some of my other hobbies.

This year I will also try visiting the SF World Con in Dublin mid August. My first ever visit to Ireland.

GPS games

GPS games is when you use the GPS in a gamified way. The most well known examples of this are geocaching and Pokémon Go. I do this as it does give me a good reason to get outdoors and maybe even get some exercise.

There are a lot of different GPS games, and they have a bit different setup and play. Some are completely augmented reality where the things exists only in the virtual world (like Pokémon Go where the "monsters" appear in your app) while some do use physical things that you use an app or a handheld GPS to locate (for example geocaching or Munzee). It should not be confused with virtual reality games, where you don't go outside...

I do believe that there are GPS games for most people - you just have to find one that fits you.

TV series

I do follow a couple of TV series. As mentioned above, SF do play a part, so I tend to be interested in TV series with SF content, but I watch other things as well. As time is limited I try to restrict it to TV series that have good recommendation, mostly from people with compatible taste.

Board games

boardgamegeek.com

Now games has always been a big interest for me. Have been interested in all kinds of games, although interest vary over time. It seems I is much less interested in video games, but tend to focus more on physical games, like card, board and table top games.

Board games I have been into since the 70s. Although I played mainly mainstream games (like Alga) when I was young, in the 80s I started with role playing and also more hobby board games. The role playing ones did pass over after about 10 years, but board games are still around. And in recent years I have really expanded on my collection.

Summarize

I think this can be enough for now. More things might be added if I feel for it... but I will try to avoid more controversial subjects as you can get enough of that on the social media.

So expect to get more content here in the future, and not just about geocaching...

Oh yes, do the description needs update?

King, somewhat cut down

Probably. My chihuahua is since many years named Daisy, not King. Poor King... He was long coated and had problems with big problems with sickness so we had to put him down when he was just 4 years. Although I had removed my first Chihuahua Poppe when he was 10 years old, that last visit with King to the veterinary was one of my worst experiences. Otherwise the description seems to be quite accurate.

Daisy on the balcony

Daisy is a short coated Chihuahua. White, with one ear fully brown, and the other one partially brown. Also have some brown around the tail root.

She is very healthy, and had had little problems. She is also the most lap-dogish of all 4 dogs I have had.








See you around!