BotFighters 2010?
Remember BotFighters? If you're a veteran of the mobile games market you might.
It was a location-based mobile game launched in Sweden in 2001 by a firm called It's Alive. It was like electronic tag, with players chasing one another round city streets 'killing' one another via SMS.
The game was ahead of its time, but praise for its innovation didn't turn it into the Next Big Thing In Mobile Gaming that was predicted at the time.
Why talk about it now? Because it seems Apple may be working on its own BotFighters-style concept. At least, that's what's hinted at in a newly-revealed patent filing from the company.
It talks about "an interactive game environment" that includes "two or more co-located, networked, direction and location aware interactive game devices", and specifically references 'Laser Tag' as one of the "interactive games" that could be played using the technology.
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It would use a combination of GPS, cell triangulation, Wi-Fi, the compass and other sensors, while plotting player locations on the screen.
Oh, and there could also be voice communications involved too.
As ever with patents, it's far from certain that Apple is actually going to launch this kind of service, but the prospect of the company rolling out a location-based gaming platform for developers to build games on top of is a fascinating prospect.
