CompetitiveAnalysis-Alan Choi
From CS 160 Fall 2010
Restatement of Idea
Our game is a hide and seek with GPS radar to play in various modes and difficulties.
Competitors
- Hide and Seek with GPS by Weston Digital City, LLC
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hide-and-seek-with-gps/id334625184?mt=8 iPhone App “$3.99”
Hide and Seek is a GPS and map based realtime game tool for group of friends playing hide-and-seek.
Target User Group
- The target user group is people who like to play games with their friends outside, running around in large areas.
Functionality
- This application focuses a lot of the social aspect in addition to the game. The game isn't all that developed, but I do like the fact that GPS turns off when you get relatively close to keep the game from being too easy. But onto the social aspect, you can create groups, sync your identities to FaceBook or Twitter, and set locations for games and send out invites and such to get people to go. The game being an exact targeter kind of ruins the game because it'd be way too easy, so we have an improved game by only giving either distance or line of angle.
Usability
- It's a very simple layout with what looks like two modes, a direct compass or a moving location on a zoomed in map. Because of that, the game looks intuitive to play, but there isn't much complexity.
- HideNTweet'’' Dove Valley Apps
http://hidentweet.com/ iPhone App ‘’Free’’
hideNtweet is new game that let's you bring back the fun of schoolyard hide and seek in the real world, playing with friends or solo with our scary ghosts, using your iPhone's interactive map to find your way, its camera to tag other players and touch home, and Twitter to communicate with other players.
Target User Group
- The users enjoy outside games and perhaps want to meet new people and play with anyone that wants to play. This also caters to people that like taking pictures as this game involves a lot of that.
Functionality
- There is also the capability to play by yourself, chasing after computer generated "ghosts" and try to tag them. Also, to tag someone you have to take their picture and the verdict will be decided through Twitter.
Usability
- I think that they single player mode is brilliant for those times when everyone else is just too busy to play with you. I think that picture taking is a fascinating aspect, but I think the judging through tweets takes too much time and during a game, always checking your phone like that is distracting. The interface looks simple as well and looks simple to play.
- Hide & Seek + Tag by Wildcat Apps
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hide-seek-tag/id372201218?mt=8 iPhone App $0.99’'
Hide & Seek + Tag is a multiplayer game. It combines two classic games - "Hide & Seek" and "Tag" on your iPod Touch or iPhone! One person will be chosen to be "it" by the app. After that person chooses more game settings, they close his or her eyes and wait for the other players to hide.
Target User Group
- Like the others, the target user group is people who enjoy outdoor games with friends.
Functionality
- There is no GPS in this game, actually, but it adds an actually running/tag aspect to the game, but to keep them from constantly running, they are restricted to "balancing" a ball in the bowl. And they keep going until everyone is knocked out within a time limit.
Usability
- I think that it's a really basic design. Without any kind of tracking, the application basically only keeps the hiders from moving around too much and losing focus. From the screenshots, it also looks like it's not really all that intuitive how to tag others and keep yourself in the game by balancing a ball.
- Hide'n'Seek by Matthias Schorer
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hidenseek/id334723834?mt=8 iPhone App $0.99
Hide’n’Seek is a modern spin of the much loved classic. The iPhone’s GPS allows up to five players to track each other’s positions on a radar screen. Seekers can find out if they’re ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ and zero in on their friend who is crouched in the bushes, standing behind a tree or peeking out from a favorite hiding spot.
Target User Group
- The target user group is people who enjoy playing tag more than hide and seek really because the game is mainly tag despite its name.
Functionality
- You basically start a game with up to 4 others and you play tag with everyone else going after you, but you have them on your radar so you can constantly be on the move. There is also a perimeter that you must respect or else you automatically lose. We improve on the game by making the radar less powerful, but still valuable to the point that it makes the game much more challenging.
Usability
- I think that the buttons to toggle aren't intuitive at all, but the radar interface and ability to change range on the radar are good aspects. It strips the map, making it more like a radar than some of the other games.
- Friends Radar by Darcy Studio
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/friends-radar/id377695746?mt=8 iPhone App $1.99
Find out where your friends are.
Target User Group
- This application is useful for people that want to find a certain person and physically go to this person as this program only tracks one person at a time on a radar.
Functionality
- You choose a friend to target and from that you can see your distance and angle from the person. You can also set landmarks to put on the radar. We will improve on this by being able to focus on several people, not just a single one.
Usability
- Even reading the description, I got a little bit confused by its radar target screen. I also think that the limited landmark capacity is a bit disheartening, since there are many landmarks and points of interests that one person can have.
- Friend Tracker by Ying Mobile
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/friend-tracker-locate-any/id364860850?mt=8 iPhone App $0.99'
Locate any mobile phone.
Target User Group
- This program pinpoints a phone number to its exact location. This doesn't quite fit in with our target group as this is more of a info app than a game.
Functionality
- You enter a number and on a map, a point and overlay box will appear on the map showing its exact location.
Usability
- It's very simple and only requires entering a number, really. There's only one screen, so there is no complicated switching and whatnot.
- iSonar by CREMOTE, LLC
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/isonar/id335520129?mt=8 iPhone App Free
Follow your friends and have them follow you. Save and share your favorite places. Keep in touch and connect with iSonar.
Target User Group
- The targets users are people that like to go out and hang out with friends in different places and enjoy spur of the moment activities.
Functionality
- You can see all of your friends in real time on either a map or radar, and you can basically message friends to meet at certain locations.
Usability
- It has a very nice and shiny GUI and makes it really feel like a radar. The labels and such make reading the radar really easily. The messaging system makes sense as you basically propose and wait for people to either accept or deny those requests. and vice versa.
- DRadar by Dylvian
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dradar/id303789160?mt=8 iPhone App $1.99
D-RADAR will allow you not just being able to detect other application' users that are within a 50 km radius but also detecting all the contacts or friends you add, being able to set a meeting point anytime, or simply find a friend that got lost on his way, or just know who is near you.
Target User Group
- The users are people that enjoy contacting friends that are nearby to meetup soon and hang out.
Functionality
- It's just like the other radars and shows you a simple grid view of of friends, but you are given the option to email/text friends automatically for them to turn on their application and find out about the meeting spot as well.
Usability
- It has an awesome interface in terms of a Dragon Ball fan's perspective, but without the details on the dots on the radar, it's really hard to be able to make use of this other than a friend that you do not know the identity of those who are nearby.
- Geocaching by GroundSpeak Inc
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/geocaching/id292242503?mt=8 iPhone App $9.99'
Geocaching is a global treasure hunting game where participants locate hidden physical containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share their experience online.
Target User Group
- This user group is people who enjoy traveling and like immediate rewards such as the discovery of said treasure, and just plain enjoy challenges and puzzles as hints are littered throughout to help us get closer.
Functionality
- There is a lot of functionality to this game and application. You can basically choose a game based on your location and the difficulty of the game. And as you travel through, you can be in a different viewing modes, such as a compass mode.
Usability
- The numerous buttons makes this application overwhelming and the many, many points make the map feel chaotic and cluttered. However, the word labels on buttons make things still clear in a way. On first glance, I'm not sure how to switch modes at all. Our application is going to be a lot simpler, but we will take some cues from the app and try to use buttons with word labels to make things clearer.
- GPS Radar by 3y3.net
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gps-radar/id325200187?mt=8 iPhone App $1.99
GPS Radar allows you to locate in a virtual Radar all contacts from your address book or any other location you want to add.
Target User Group
- Like previous apps, the target users want to be able to find friends on a radar and add locations to the
Functionality
- You can have people and locations on radar with 64 different icons to represent these items.
Usability
- The radar screen looks fun, but overall it still looks kind of bad with tiny (not actually that much variety) icons. We will improve on this with actually labels with info on them so you can tell which dots are which.
Summary
The value of our game is the difficulty of the game mode, so that it isn't just now a game of tag or limited. We want to play in a rather large space and not be able to pinpoint someone and just run there. We would have to estimate it with our partial information. And because of that, our game doesn't deteriorate into a long game of tag. I believe that from a gameplay perspective, we trump over all other competitors. In terms of comparing it to the social applications, we can't really compare it because we don't have a need for those features in particular.
