The game best played on the move

Launched in London last month was a new online game called Chromaroma. The game is played on the London transport network and utilises your Oyster travel card to gain information regarding your commuting. Players can get points by many different actions but each swipe of your card contributes to your team’s tally. You can go on personal missions to set record times between stations or venture to parts of London that you might not have visited before.

The developers of the game describe is as a “type of location-based top-trumps. You collect places, identities, modes of transport and passengers as you travel around the city; discover and investigate mysteries attached to different locations and build alliances with fellow passengers that share your journeys. It’s a game you can play on your own, or part of a team.”

It sounds like an initiative by TFL to coerce the weary Londoner into increasing their Oyster card usage and decrease their bank account funds but it’s actually a new interactive form of gaming that has been taken up very quickly. Most games of this nature would require you to use your GPS smartphone to ‘check-in’ at certain locations (like Foursquare) but this game is based entirely online allowing anyone who owns an Oyster card or a Boris Bike key to get involved.

“It’s like a bank, if you deposit money then you have the right to remove it and count it. If you create data then you have the right to take it out and look at it” says Toby Barnes who’s responsible for the development of the game. It’s the data that’s the fascinating part of the game and the biggest reason to sign up is to see your journeys round London visualised in an interesting and engaging way.

The exciting part of the game arises when you align yourself with a certain group and try to take over stations. The game revolves in ‘seasons’ (lasting a few months each) and the team with the most swipes of the season has ownership of that particular station. The busier stations: Victoria, Waterloo, Liverpool Street etc. all seem to change hands daily which opens up the game.

The data used does raise some ethical questions about tracking people’s whereabouts and creating a log of everywhere you’ve been. The game designers, Mudlark, get around this with a forty eight hour delay on your information being updated online. This does seem to remove some of the immediacy of the game as you can’t always remember your whereabouts two days previous and if you’re involved in a vicious battle to takeover your home station then you’ll want to see your results straight away.

But it’s not all about rushing between stations to secure more points and records. The organisers say that they are looking to introduce new features to the game which might give you more points for getting off one stop early and walking. Using the Boris Bikes currently scores you points but you may be rewarded with more points if you switch from the underground to the bikes. Mudlark are also considering sponsorship opportunities which would give users discounts to services along their favourite routes and players with more points might receive special offers from companies.

It’s well worth a try, the visuals will keep you enticed more than anything else although I’m not sure the game has enough to keep people coming back for months.