Kickstart Some Map Monsters Madness

Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering, is working on a new iOS title and he needs your help to fund it. Yes, this is yet another Kickstarter project, but with this pedigree behind it, it's hard to ignore. Richard's new game is called Map Monsters. It is a free to play location based adventure game. As part of the Kickstarter project, the developer created the following video to entice potential contributors: If you cannot view the embedded video above, it is also available by clicking here. In Map Monsters, you control a member of a monster containment unit. It's your job to catch some of the many creatures roaming the world around you. Think of it as Pokemon for your iDevice. The game even features a Pokedex equivalent, found in the Field Guide To Monsters. The area that Map Monsters set's itself apart from Pokemon is through the use of your location. Richard was keen to make the location based gameplay a secondary, rather than primary mechanic of the game. You don't actually have to change locations to play the game, though if you do you will advance through the game at an accelerated rate. According to the Kickstarter page, Map Monsters will also feature:

• Earth as a game board. We take raw map data from the four corners of the globe and roll a fictional world that mirrors our own.
• Virtual travel. You're not limited to what you can find in your physical location; walk your character through a virtual world teaming with new things to discover.
• Explore. You never know what you'll find in the game by checking in to new physical locations, or walking your character throughout the world.
• Scarcity. You'll find an abundance of some items in your area, but you'll have to travel further afield or trade with others from far away places to succeed.
• Build. Like to build stuff? Build mileposts, roads, goldmines, farms and more.
• Social. Trade with your friends, use their roads, collaborate to fight monsters.
• Available platforms. Available on iPhone and iPad initially; we plan to work on porting the game to Android subsequently.

The team behind Map Monsters is offering some nice rewards for anyone that invests in the project. These include a signed poster from Richard Garfield, all the way up to a place in a "game night" in Seattle for $2,500. You have to pay for your own travel however! This looks like an interesting and innovative project. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on it's progress. Keep an eye on AppAdvice over the next few months for all of the latest information when we get it.