While my new job has been keeping my from PhoneBomber (and the other apps I planned on working on), I continued to think about it location-aware gaming.

I've recently been playing Qonqr - really the first location-aware game that I think has really taken off.  I've been enjoying playing it - even have driven to different areas to place bases in better faction areas. Fun :)

Some of the things I've noted, that I will take as feedback into my own games:

1. The low levels are 100% grind, at least for players starting now.  Everywhere around me are players that are max level and Scope.  I really can't do much - can't really take a base fom my faction group, and can't really attack an enemy in any useful way. So I've been grinding exp.  I just made level 100 today - but really feel that I need to grind on scope upgrades now.
   
   The take-away from this is to make SURE that the lower level of the game has some point.  Even WoW and EQ had a bit of a point in grinding exp - quests and the like.
   
2. They've done this to some extent - but figure out a way to extend the reach of players.  The location based part should be front and center, but there should be a way to reach out - through set portals, helping guild/faction mates in other areas, etc.
   
3. Extend that reach outside of location-based.  For example, I should be able to create a portal, and then use that portal for a period of time from wherever (including via the browser on my PC).
   
4. As part of extended reach, and the browser, the game should ALWAYS allow the user to do something.  If the game play would be upsetted by constant attacks, then come up with something else (crafting?  Let players, over time, create items that would otherwise have to be bought? New stuff? SOMETHING that lets me play more!)
   
5. Give better feedback on what's going on.  I really don't get a sense of what others in my faction group are doing - like, who else besides the zone holder is holding the zone.  If an enemy attacks me, I'm not really aware of this (beyond noticing my bot levels go down).  A sense of in-game community is critical.
   
6. Allow players to communicate and group in-game.  You can use in-game mail, but that's tough to really use at any kind of useful scale.  It looks like most player are going out-of-game to self-organize.  It would be great if you could form "groups" that worked together for a period of time + had good 

I'm not sure at this point if I'll be continuing with PhoneBomber.  Been thinking about doing a Google Glasses version (as it would be easy to do, and very playable, on that platform).  Really thinking of doing G&E, or Other World.

Was in a interview in the Bay Area and...

mentioned that, before the interview, I had been placing bombs all around the campus.

Thought that would be a good talking point, as one of the reasons they wanted to talk to me was my various apps, with a focus on PhoneBomber.

As PhoneBomber is all about placing bombs, disarming them, and blowing shiat up, I THOUGHT that would be ok.... did I mention that security goons just don't get massively-multiplayer, location-aware games!?!?! :)

20K, Lots of Bombs!

PhoneBomber is doing pretty good - heading to 25,000 users.  At any given time there's over 10,000 bombs queued up - and there have been over 1 million placed.  Bunch of people look very active, and ALL over the place.

You can see details over at http://www.phonebomber.com/

Here's a map of all bombs that have blown up since the end of last year (ouch!)

Layar

The latest version has a Layar in it - so you can now SEE the bombs around you! Very cool AR app.  Working on getting the layar approved, and then will launch from PhoneBomber.  They don't have a embedded version for Android yet, so will look at just launching...

More users, More Bombs

Still cranking on users - should be over 20k soon! I have not been tracking bombs counts in detail, but I am guessing over 1 million have been placed to date!

Contracts

A new version was released tonight, the biggest change being Contracts. Users can take out a contract at a specific location.  They can get to that location by clicking on a map, or by entering a address/location name.

Once a contract has been taken out, anyone that places a bomb near the contract point will get a bonus.

Some back-end work needs to be done with this (news, points for who placed it when the contract is fulfilled, etc).  Contracts have always been in the base system, just not directly available on the Android app - "Missions" are just contracts that are auto-gen'd.

App install count has gone to around 7,800. 10k just around the corner!

67k

Working on a movie of the bombs going off... so had to D/L some data.  Noticed that as of this afternoon, 67,082 bombs have been placed. Cool!