Dysfunctional drunks, lurking loners and nervous nerds need no longer feel alone thanks to a new mobile phone guessing game called YOU-WHO.
YOU-WHO is a social game for mobile phones that is billed as acting as a “gentle introduction for strangers.”
The software uses the personal area networks created by Bluetooth technology to introduce players to weird geeks, desperate losers, lonely psychopaths, fellow game players in their locality.
The game can be played in any public space where Bluetooth-enabled folks might lurk – train stations, airports, cafés, bars, dark alleyways etc – and supports multi-play gaming.
After two players have agreed to take part in the game, one player will take on the role of ‘mystery person’, gradually feeding clues about their appearance to the other player, who builds up an Anime-style picture on their screen using (ahem) a “million-billion character combinations”.
Once a set number of clues have been given, the players’ phones ‘call’ to each other with a distinctive sound, thus revealing both players’ locations and identities, quickly followed by screams of “Aaaargh!” Get away from me you weird freakshow nerd!”
Billing their game as a “New Type of Social Network Game”, YOU-WHO claims that their game encourages “players to explore their social environment and to take risks”, and that their technology “uses Bluetooth to re-open these social spaces for new chance encounters.”
We’ve always thought that going up to interesting-looking people and just talking to them does the job for us, but no doubt some teenagers might prefer to sit in a corner slumped over their mobile phone instead.
You-WHO is offered as a free 28 day time-limited demo. The cheery young developers at AgeO+ hope to have a full commercial release soon.
The software won the Submerge Graduate Awards, a cross-format competition based in the South West of England. If you’ve a penchant for tiny text, pointless animation and fiddly Flash websites, you’ll love their Website