Gym Jungle

Gym Jungle

A multiplayer mobile game designed and implemented within 24 hours in the context of a mobile game competition

Materials/Languages: Adobe Flash Lite, mobile phone in public gamespace

Gym Jungle is a multi-player mobile game played within a large-scale, public digital gamespace. Players navigate to the top of a school gym’s ropes course on the larger screen by catching directional cues from dodge balls launched across each player’s handset. To be set in such a venue as a movie theater lobby, Gym Jungle fits in with the flowing natural movement of people through a public space, forming an enriching casual gaming experience. The game uses move-queueing to compensate for network latency. The gameboard map remains static, so players may leave or enter the game at any time. Players compete for score most closely with their co-joiners, making the game perfect for groups of friends entering a space at the same time.

Handset play:

Large gameboard with closeups:

Gym Jungle was created by Las Pwnistas (Kate Garaufis, Anna Lowe, Liz Nesher, Becky Stern, Ira Sutcliffe, and Todd Vanderlin) as part of the 2006 Mobile Game Mosh, affiliated with Parsons the New School for Design, Atari, Glu Mobile, and Nokia.

Press: Featured in Electronic Gaming Monthly, Business Week, and Gamasutra. Flickr photos tagged with mobilegamemosh

Awards: Honorable Mention for Best Sound Design, Honorable Mention for Most Innovative Game

You can play the online mockup of the handset dodgeball game to get a sense of the motion and sound.

Copyright 2006 Las Pwnistas, Parsons the New School for Design, Atari, and Glu Mobile. All rights reserved.