nitefoll

Success, hurrah at last I managed to get an mScape working.

 
After my 2 previous failed attempts I  was a little dubious this would work, but after installing and firing up the TimeHole mscape I was pleasantly surprised.  Again I wandered to George Square in Glasgow and after a few moments got a GPS fix and was off eagerly settings my "Spirit Spaces."

My initial reaction was the game was a cool concept, but, as with previous mScaping, I did feel quite self conscious that I was wandering around with an expensive piece of kit in my hand.  The fear of either dropping/breaking it or having it pinched was prevalent.  I would recommend you have accident insurance for your PDA if your wandering around outside with it.

Once the "Spirit Spaces" were calibrated the game was easy enough to play, though I did forget where one of them was, so took a bit of wandering around to find it again.  I didn't have time to close the timehole, but played it enough to make a few observations:

• Essential, you really do need an accurate GPS fix.
• Walk slowly, if you don't have a decent GPS signal it takes a few moments for the game to detect you've moved.
• Ensure you put a good distance between GPS nodes ("Spirit Spaces") or the game simply goes crazy playing overlapping media clips etc.
  
• Once the mScape game detects that you've moved into an "interaction" area, stand still.  I found that, probably due to poor GPS, that I'd walk into and out of a "Spirit Space, but had to laboriously wait for the game to play through the "entering location" then "leaving location" then "entering location" media clips... annoying!  Perhaps building a "Skip" function into the media clip? Also, a "replay clip" function for important game info.
  
• Pay attention to your surroundings, walking around staring at a PDA screen allowed me to nearly walk over an open drain cover, common sense I know, but when you're immersed in the game you may not notice.
• Not sure when it's possible, but "Multi-player" games, would ROCK!!
• Looking at the next release of the MBuilder software the ability to zero in on GPS bugs and other blue tooth devices, also ROCKS!

From an ARGing perspective, weekly/monthly episodic style releases spring to mind, in conjunction with the game, TV shows or movies.  All in all, I enjoyed playing the game and would be interested in purchasing full blown MScape games, provided they were of high quality and immersive enough to achieve lasting game play.