Clever Foursquare Hack Turns New York City Into a Giant Game of Risk

[edkennedy]

There's no real mention of how the game mechanics are integrated. It's not really risk if it's simply "the most checkins wins." No element of chance. Could still be early in the game however.

[shakes]

We're still tweaking game mechanics, but the general way it works right now is like this:

- If you checkin and your borough already owns that neighborhood your checkin adds a defender to the neighborhood.

- If you checkin and your borough doesn't own that neighborhood, your checkin counts as an attack.

-For an attack we do a dice roll, and based on that dice roll you take out X number of defenders. If your checkin takes out all the defense then your borough now owns that neighborhood and you become a defender.

As the user base increases we'll definitely be tweaking things, but the element of chance is huge to us. It's what keeps things interesting.

[gavingmiller]

Anyone looking for a localized version of risk should definitely checkout Own This World: http://ownthisworld.com/

It works around the globe and it's quite fun. It actually changed how I travel about the city... pretty awesome. The devs are very active with it too (Edit: and they just hit 10k users.)

[Goronmon]

Huh, no Android but Windows Phone and iPhone support. That's the first time I've seen that combo.

[hugh3]

I'd love to see this done in South Central Los Angeles.

[pavel_lishin]

It would be nice if they open-sourced it so people could make their own maps, teams, etc.

[hoprocker]

Don't worry -- remember how craigslist used to only be for SF? You start your project static, then develop towards dynamicism. We'll be playing Fourcraft in Paris, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires, and they may even get enough of a playerbase to really take it international (Africa has control of Minnesota!).

[cpeterso]

Or go global!

[Shenglong]

Maybe NYC gangs can start using Foursquare instead of guns to settle their turf wars. :)

[devindotcom]

This is something I've been meaning to mention to the FS developers for like a year now. All you need is to let people be members of teams and track team presence with some basic blob-based map overlays. People will quickly and naturally divide into Red and Blue, Jets and Sharks, North and South. It's possible they don't want to introduce that element, but I know it'd be fun as hell now that it's so popular in many urban locations.

[scelerat]

Turf, an antecedent.

http://www.smedresmania.com/turf/

[johns]

QONQR is doing something similar but with more than just checkins.

[pavel_lishin]

As a big risk and Langrab fan, this looks pretty awesome.

[Jeema3000]

All hail the barbarian armies of the Waste Land!... :)

[pavel_lishin]

I take it that's Jersey?

[mkramlich]

Read the description of the "game". So.... neither Risk or Warcraft or WOW. Foursquare is involved though, that's the only honest/accurate part.

[michaeldhopkins]

Very clever. I'd like to see you re-enact Napoleon of Notting Hill using this system.