My gaming interests are fairly cyclical in nature. I can always count on them to come back around. It’s one of the reasons I never regret buying something even if I don’t play it. Eventually I’m going to come back to it.
This turn of the wheel appears to have landed on “games that use OpenStreetMap data”.
OpenStreetMaps is like Wikipedia for maps. At its core, it’s a database that’s updated and maintained by contributors that is also used to render a map of the world. Anyone can contribute to the map and make edits and the data is freely available for anyone to use. Services that use OSM data range from GPS routing apps, to finding hiking trails, data visualization, games, and much more.
I had no idea that OpenStreetMap existed until I stumbled upon Nimby Rails on Steam a few years ago. I spent some time creating virtual train routes all over the world and I was facinated with the idea being able to play anywhere in the world.
It turns out, there’s a more than a handful of games out there that use this data which are helpfully located on theOpenStreetMap wiki. As expected, the list has a number of augmented reality mobile games. The most notable, by far, is Pokemon Go which uses OpenStreetMap data to influence Pokemon spawns.There are quite a few PC games that also use OSM data. The big one there is Microsoft Flight Simulator.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for a good sale for a few games on the list. There’s a couple published by Game Operators that look interesting: Delivery Inc which looks like a delivery company tycoon kind of thing and Infection Free Zone which is a zombie survival game. Of the two, I’m leaning more towards Infection Free Zone but I have yet to see it go on sale for a price I’m ready to pay.
To scratch the current gaming itch I went with a free to play browser game on the list called MissionChief . It’s a game where you manage and dispatch emergency services in an area of your choosing. You start out building fire stations and outfitting them with vehicles to respond to calls. Then from there you can expand into hospitals/EMS, police stations, water rescue, and apparently tow trucks. It’s a little bit of a tycoon game, a little bit of an idle game both of which I’m a fan of, and it’s been keeping me entertained for the last two weeks.
You can place stations anywhere you want but it appears most of the community plays with “realistic” station placements. I thought would be fun and maybe add a little more challenge too.
I started building around my area in Cleveland and it’s been fun to find all the fire stations in the different towns around me and see the vehicles drive around roads I know well. It was slow going at first but I’ve built up 10 fire stations now so there are always calls to respond to.
The gameplay is simple. You earn money from completing calls/mission. Each mission requires a certain number of vehicles to successfully complete. A mailbox fire only requires a fire engine while a garage fire needs two. So you need to decide which vehicle is the best to send where to complete the calls efficiently
As you build more fire stations, more mission types become available which require different vehicles. This means you have to make sure you’re not expanding too quickly or you risk either running out of money for the vehicles required for the new missions or not having the staff to operate the new vehicles.
It’s got a mobile app that I can hop in quick to dispatch some vehicles to missions while I’m doing other things. Then when I feel like spending time expanding my stations or setting map POI’s I can do so from my PC. It’s keeping my interest for now. For how much longer? Who knows!
Many Welps 