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Gbanga
Gbanga company logo
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Location-based game
Available inEnglish, German
Headquarters
Gbanga Studio, Zurich
,
Switzerland
Area servedWorldwide
OwnerMillform AG
Founder(s)Matthias Sala
Julio Perez
Key peopleRobin Di Capua, Werner Sala, Chris Solarski, Christian Wittmer, François Lachausse
Employees5
URLgbanga.com
RegistrationRequired
Launched13th April, 2010
Current statusActive

Gbanga is a mixed reality, social gaming platform for mobile phones developed by Zurich-based startup, Millform AG. The platform runs on real-time locative media, developed in-house, which means that the gaming environment changes relative to the players real-world location. Players can interact with each other using built-in social and chat functions, which indicate their current real-world locations as well as online and offline status. Additional features enable social gaming in forms such as exploring, collecting and trading.

Games

Gbanga Zooh [1] was the first game to be published on the platform in August 2009, in cooperation with Zurich Zoo. The game encouraged players to maintain virtual habitats across the Canton of Zurich in order to attract and collect endangered species of animals.

The advent calendar game, Gbanga Santa, was launched in December 2009 in Zurich. Players solved puzzles to find the real-world locations of virtual gifts scattered around the city. Once found and collected, virtual gifts were then tradable for prizes provided by sponsors.[2]

April 2010 saw the launch of Gbanga Famiglia,[3] a game in which players can join or start their own Mafia Famiglia to take-over virtual establishments they discover whilst walking around the city. Establishments are linked to real-world establishments, so players must physically move between locations to play. A successful take-over depends on the Famiglia's power, determined by the number of Famiglia members and the cash total for special items collected.

Technology

The J2ME-based version uses a real-time locating system referencing a network of cell sites to determine the players location, whilst the iPhone version of the platform uses GPS. The platform is available worldwide as an application download for the iPhone and J2ME compatible phones.

Whilst Gbanga Studio continues to develop games in-house, the playing community itself can also generate interactive content using Gbanga's Puppetmaster API, coded with Lua (programming language).

Awards

In 2011 Gbanga won the AppCircus Spotlight on Blackberry, hosted in Barcelona.[4] Gbanga was nominated for Business Idea 2010 by Internet World Business,[5] shortlisted for Best of Swiss Web Award 2010[6] and shortlisted in the category of Best Real World Game for the International Mobile Gaming Awards.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Lüssi, M: Elefanten und Tiger per Handy retten, 20 Minuten AG, 2009.
  2. ^ a b Nominee in the category of Best Real World Game, IMGA: International Mobile Gaming Awards 2010
  3. ^ Lüssi, M: Mit Game zu Mafioso, 20 Minuten AG, 2010.
  4. ^ Gbanga is the Winner of AppCircus Spotlight on BlackBerry, dotopen 2010, 2011.
  5. ^ Gbanga gibt Gas, Internet World Business, 2010
  6. ^ Best of Swiss Web Award 2010 Shortlist, Best of Swiss Web Award, 2010.
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