
Real Life MMO FPS - jbach
http://father.io/
======
Taek
On campus in college played humans vs zombies frequently. It's one of the most
fun sports I've ever played. The magic really came from two directions. The
first was being a human, where you've got a nerf blaster that fires nerf
darts. If you hit a zombie, they are frozen for a few seconds, usually between
6 and 15. A decent human could manage 5-on-1 attacks. Its a blast to be
charged by 5 opponents and to come out on top. But you only had one life.

As a zombie, the fun came from having unlimited lives. You grab 2-5 friends
and you charge a group of humans. And then you spend minutes wearing them
down, taking their ammo, waiting for a mistake. Occasionally you'd dodge a
shot or two and then you'd be close enough to tag them. It's very rewarding
when you finally do get the human, because they are so much stronger than you.
The infinite lives means you don't get discouraged, and it also means its okay
to make risky attacks.

This game looks like fun, but a few mechanics worry me. The first is dying. If
your opponent is a lot better than you, can you have fun? How long do you stay
dead? You are almost certain to have interactions that you aren't prepared
for, or you drop your phone, or some set of frustrations happen. Is the game
built to prevent frustration?

The second is that having to hold your phone with two hands seems really
clunky. In HvZ, the (for many players anyway) blaster is everything. It has to
feel good in your hands, you have to trust it, you have to be able to sprint
_while firing_. You can't sprint and aim with two hands. If you stumble,
having two hands out means you have nothing to help you hit the ground
smoothly. You can't grab a tree and use it to turn faster. You can drop a nerf
blaster because they are tough and cost $5-$20 for the small ones. You can't
drop your phone unless you really trust the case. You have to be a lot more
careful, and you have to trust your grip. Phones don't have handholds the same
way that blasters do.

Cool idea, but not excited by the current demo video.

~~~
archon
> where you've got a nerf blaster that fires nerf darts.

I'm surprised your college let you guys get away with this. Mine included nerf
guns in the campus 'zero tolerance' weapons policy.

~~~
Taek
The guy who started the club was very proactive about talking to the
administration. I think that nerf blasters (we were not allowed to call them
guns, they are "blasters") were originally allowed by campus policy, which
made things easier. But there were many strict rules. No black, no silver, had
to be a brightly colored "blaster" firing brightly colored ammo. No playing in
the streets, no interacting with non-players.

We were very aggressive about complying with the administration. Any request
was immediately honored, and if it was unfair we'd request a change in policy
on a later day. We were very diplomatic and worked very hard to be on the good
side of the administration. I think this helped a lot.

I'm not sure how that would scale to a city. Trying to be compliant with many
police forces in different residential areas sounds a lot harder than trying
to be compliant with a single college campus administration. Especially
because it's a lot harder to enforce a diplomatic attitude among thousands of
random players than it is among 50 people who are all either friends, or
friends of friends.

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jon-wood
I'm really split on this. The gamer in me thinks this looks like great fun,
but I just can't see myself running round the streets of London shooting
people with my phone, mostly because its likely to result in either ridicule,
or stepping into traffic.

~~~
mercnet
I was thinking the same thing. I would run into a wall or a car as I fight
someone. I can see the game being successful at someone's house with a decent
size property. However, why not just grab a paintball gun instead?

~~~
Taek
When playing hvz, stumbling was pretty common. Out of 40 players, one or two
would get scraped up on the concrete per game. Running into walls, poles, and
trees pretty much never happened.

The streets were very strictly off limits. And if there was a car (like a
Public Safety vehicle) patrolling the campus sidewalks, all play stopped until
the car was a certain distance away. No running, tagging, or shooting on the
streets or by a moving car (parking lots were okay IFF there were no moving
vehicles). Anybody in violation was immediately thrown from the game and
banned from the next.

Safety under these conditions was not ever a problem. A sprained ankle was the
worst injury we ever had, and that's going to happen in all sports.

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Argorak
Considering that you can be arrested for playing paintball out of restricted
areas in germany, I would avoid this.

"simulated killing" can be banned by communities here, the european rights
court found that legal about this 10 years ago (C-36/02). Laserdrome was the
game in question back then. The decision goes down to §1 of the german
grundgesetz (our constitution), which is the inviolability of human dignity.

While Laserdrome and Paintball is rather commonplace nowadays, often, one of
the provisions expected to open such a space is the exclusion of anyone not
involved in the game.

I don't want to know how the reaction to people running around town "shooting"
at each other will be.

~~~
rpedela
I can understand banning paintball. Paintballs can cause bruising, blindness,
and stain clothes and walls. I don't think paintball is a fair comparison
here.

~~~
Argorak
Paintball is not banned because of physical danger. It's banned because it
simulates killing. So the comparison fits.

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higherpurpose
These Ingress-like type of games seem like a good trend, and this game too
looks like fun. Just one thing - I probably wouldn't play this in US,
certainly not if I'd have colored or black skin. Police there seems to be a
_little_ too trigger happy and tends to yell "he's got a gun" even when they
don't even see the gun. That has happened a few times too many in US for me to
comfortably play this game there. Just the more recent one:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XFYTtgZAlE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XFYTtgZAlE)

~~~
pawelkomarnicki
Well it's a cool idea but I don't want any weirdo come over looking for me
when I'm at work, right? ;-) And we both know that some people take their
games too seriously, ja? ;-)

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anonu
This seems like a really good way to get shot in real life.

~~~
freehunter
Especially if you have to attach the gun-barrel-looking thing. Especially if
there are sound effects. Especially if people role play (yelling, pretending
to be shot, or shouting about someone with a gun trying to shoot them).

Ingress is much more tame in comparison, and the forums are still full of
people talking about being stopped and questioned by the police.

------
freyfogle
A similar start-up in Berlin/Prag:
[http://thedustcloud.com](http://thedustcloud.com)

If you're in London, Howard, the founder will be speaking at #geomob on 13th
of Jan. [http://lanyrd.com/2015/geomob/](http://lanyrd.com/2015/geomob/)

~~~
hipsterpercaso
hey, we are long-time friend of dustcloud and howard. Similar concept,
different execution. hope you enjoy our too

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Globz
Nothing can go wrong :) come on...

Love the concept but I am sure this is asking for trouble. Trigger Happy cops
incoming.

~~~
hipsterpercaso
lol, cops :) they have more important things to do! and there is nothing
illegal about running around playing. that's what children do. should we just
arrest all children, then?

~~~
RankingMember
We're still dealing with the increased militarization of our cops in America
stemming from 9/11\. Here, if you're an adult and are running around in a city
like that and pretending to shoot another person, there's the distinct
possibility that a. people are going to report suspicious behavior and b. cops
are going to come and tase you, maybe beat you up a bit too (especially if
you're not white, unfortunately).

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hardwaresofton
I like how ambitious this project is.

They also got the introduction site very right -- I was seamlessly pulled into
learning about the product, no sroll-shenanigans, just a quick (and
painless/not-awkward) introduction to the product

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Morphling
Looks interesting. I wonder how the hit detection works, I mean if there was
some sort of way to boost the signal and just create device that would
terminate every player in a given area.

~~~
tarung1793
That is something planned for future. This will be available as "Advanced
Ammo".

~~~
archenemy
aaaand there's the expected pay-to-win.

~~~
tarung1793
nop!

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Robadob
This is obviously the smart phone enabled version of the old 'Assasins'
roleplaying game that seems to be common around my university. I know some
people who would be interested in something like this whereby they could
utilise it as a framework to setup their own games/rules.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_(game)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_\(game\))

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RoryH
How long before some law enforcement officer shoots somebody thinking they are
holding a real gun?

~~~
messo
Mostly a problem for people in countries where cops are allowed to carry a
weapon. In other words, we Norwegians can play in public without running the
risk of being shoot by a cop :)

~~~
lubos
Norwegian police officers do not carry firearms, but keep their Heckler & Koch
MP5 submachine guns and Heckler & Koch P30 pistols locked down in the patrol
cars.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Police_Service](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Police_Service)

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hywel
Excellent landing page design, but judging by the YT video there's a lot to be
done before they can match it with the actual product.

~~~
tarung1793
That video is an old one, a lot of progress has been made. These are not empty
promises! ;)

~~~
Filligree
Call us back when you have a video of the current state, then.

~~~
ffwacom
So brave

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DocFeind
I want in when the SXSW mega game goes down ;)

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klunk
I like how they designed the game so that beautiful women play it. Excellent
design decision.

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pearjuice
Yeah, I am sure we will soon see hundreds of well-dressed, athletic people
running around with their smartphone in camera position. Expect this to
generate a lot of buzz, because virtual reality is a one way ticket to success
these days. See you at the Series A, with neither revenue nor anything beyond
a demo video.

~~~
Gigablah
> I am sure we will soon see hundreds of well-dressed, athletic people running
> around with their smartphone in camera position

You mean they don't do that already?

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DonHopkins
The Columbine Trenchcoat Mafia tribute at the end was just adorable. I'm sure
black and middle eastern people will just have a blast playing this game at
the Walmart in Ferguson.

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hoopism
Ditch the guns guys. It's unnecessary and introduces all sorts of liability
and risk.

Honestly, it seems irresponsible.

~~~
cantankerous
Replace the gun/gun effects with sci-fi laser equivalents and I think it fixes
most of these issues. Other issues notwithstanding.

Doesn't seem irresponsible at all to me. The creators are just trying to run
with something new and ambitious.

~~~
hoopism
It's definitely ambitious and the tech is to be applauded. Just think it's
lazy and dangerous to have adults in public spaces running around pretending
shooting one another with gun-like devices and sounds.

~~~
cantankerous
That's probably fair. I should have not been so ham-fisted. I think you could
probably eliminate the gun angle entirely to a game like this, but it's wholly
necessary if the players opt to engage in responsible play like (presumably)
paintball folks or airsoft people do (knows very little about either).

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tudorizer
how does the detection work? Can't be GPS. Wifi? Bluetooth?

~~~
sumnulu
I guest, they are using GPS + Gyroscope Maybe one can increase the accuracy by
modulating the flash light and apply bandpass filter on the other end.

Also:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion)

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alexcroox
502 Bad Gateway, can anyone summarise?

~~~
vitalique
Google's cache does a surprisingly good job with all these fancy video
backgrounds:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ion=1&espv=2&q=...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ion=1&espv=2&q=cache:father.io)

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Massicalabrese
Fantastic!

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huehue
This is calling for trouble.

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robinhoodexe
If this was opensource... Oh, the possibilities...

~~~
scrollaway
Anyone can make an open source game like this. I'd rather see a successful
one.

Besides, what possibilities? I'm a huge proponent of open source but there's
more or less nothing else that you would be able to do if it were. In an MMO,
you abide by the rules of the central server, no matter how open its source
is.

~~~
mapleoin
Right, now think if the server was opensource and there would be multiple
servers with their own rules.

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dz0ny
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