Anyone around here is into RPG? How about tabletop battle games? Collectible Card Games? If you are, check out the Nearby Gamers site. If you are not, you can still check it out for yet another cool use of the Google Maps API.
The site doesn’t look like much yet, but it combines two Web 2.0-ish concepts: maps and tagging. You simply create a profile, specify your location, and then type out all the games you play as a comma separated list. This list is used as a set of tags that can be searched. One feature I really like is tag redirection. For example, if you type in “Warhammer RPG”, “Warhammer Role Playing” or “WFRP” your tag will automatically be associated with the correct concept “Warhammer RPG”. I was quite impressed, especially since the engine was able to dissasociate it from concepts such as “Warhammer WFB” or “Warhammer 40k”. This prevents one of the biggest problem of tagging systems – fracturing of the tag-space caused by small differences in spelling.
I think this is a really cool way of finding gaming groups nearby. Of course we really need more people to sign up before it becomes actually useful. For example, I could not find any users in my immediate area. I had to hit the “zoom out” button 3 or 4 times to actually see any other map markers (closest were Jersey City and NYC).
[tags]rpg, nearbygamers, nearby gamers, gaming, tabletop, ccg, google maps api, tags[/tags]
Well, I used to play D&D first edition and Warhammer when it first came out in the eighties.
But I have a life now . . . ;-)
Heh… Well, it’s not like you have to have no life to play. But it definitely helps. This is especially hard on GM’s because they have to do all the prep work. We just show up, eat his potato chips, drink his soda, and whine about not getting cool loot, or enough xp :P
I used to play a lot in High School, but then I moved, lost touch with most of the people from my old gaming group. I got back into it in college and played in a short GURPS campaign but it kinda fell apart as our GM – a father of two, found it more and more difficult to reconcile his family life and gaming.
Funny thing is – I never played D&D. Our fantasy setting of choice was Warhammer RPG – most likely because we also played the tabletop game. The game mechanics were horribly broken though. For example my dwarf character in full armor could not be wounded by Str 3 blows (nearly all bow weapons, and 90% of npc’s of the “regular grunt” variety).
Fortunately our GM was more of a storytelling guy than a dice roller, so we kinda played the game like it was the diceless Amber game. :P