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Last year, Google reorganized its Maps Platform API and also adapted it to AR games. Many of these experiences, like Pokémon Go, take advantage of location data. Today, Google is adding three new features to make games more immersive, realistic and powerful.
With Google Maps Platform, you know if a busy road is congested or when it will close for construction at night. You know that a business district is full of people (and other players) on weekdays or deserted on weekends, when a player is on a public or private property, and when restaurants and shops open and close every day and at a fixed time.
This context allows developers to create games that adapt to the player's environment in real time. The goal is to create an immersive experience with the real world, while Google Maps handles all location data and infrastructure. For example, the API will identify landmarks on which developers can place objects in the game.
To make the game "even more contextual and engaging," the API adds support for trajectory search, altitude, and biome. Pathfinding takes advantage of Google Maps routing algorithms so that characters and game elements can move on a larger scale. For example, "movement" experiences include:
- Lead monsters to chase a player
- Fly a plane to deposit provisions in a secure house
- Collaborate on missions in a futuristic city
With the support of the elevation of the field, virtual worlds will no longer be flat. In practice, developers can "customize hills, mountains, and cities to create even more personalized locations in your game." Similarly, biome data allows games to see the type of land cover of a location and further customize the virtual world:
Now you can grow cactus in the desert, ask players to look for insects in a meadow or place raccoons in a garbage dump in the alley. Or what about a space monster using emptiness that gains power by sucking different landscapes?
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more information:
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