In recent years we have been able to access numerous Pokémon GO-type experiences where, thanks to a real map, it has been possible to simulate an Augmented or Virtual Reality. Now Google Maps is advertised as open to all developers who want to use their maps for these kinds of experiences.
That is, while it had been open to a private group of developers who have taken advantage of their maps during these two years, it now becomes the domain of any developer who want to launch a game with that Pokémon GO type experience. We can already assure you that there will be few who launch.
Pokémon GO experience at the hand of any developer
In 2018 Google opened the real-time data of Google Maps and published the SDK for a limited group of game developers. This series of video game studios have been publishing their Pokémon GO-type experiences and have been able to bring together some 11 million monthly players. So everything seems to be looking very good so that other more skilled are able to follow in the wake of games of substance.
However there will be many more players who are launched to try that Pokémon GO-type experience when Google opens the door for any video game studio to use its real-time data from Google Maps for their video games.
We are surely facing the future of new games that with creative and interesting ideas are popular in a matter of months. Pokémon GO was a launch at the time who took players of all classes to the streets; and it still does, although it does not have those millions that played it monthly in its first weeks.
Using Google Maps for a game
From its blog Google has commented that any indie or indie game developer can receive access to API Semantic Tile and API Playable Locations to create games based on the player's location. In order for you to access those APIs you need to follow this link For the paid account, set up a Google Cloud Project and then download the Maps SDK for Unity, the most popular game engine for mobile phones today.
Once we have the Maps SDKs downloaded, the two APIs will be activated automatically, and developers will be able to begin their journey in location-based game design. We have the instructions to start taking those steps from this other link.
It should be mentioned that Google has not stopped improving these APIs to incorporate new features and thus improve that Pokémon GO-like experience (here we leave you a link for those who do not know this game), while optimizing it; Remember that it makes intensive use of the camera app when we use it in Augmented Reality and that it pulls the location by GPS.
The new features of the Google Maps platform they are Mixed Zoom and Pathfinding and that together they are able to improve the said experience. Mixed Zoom takes care of rendering the areas close to the player with greater detail, while the areas further away progressively display details at lower levels.
The goal of this feature is allow developers to create larger maps, but without having a serious effect on the consumption of resources on a mobile. We have already said that these types of experiences consume a lot of battery power. On the other hand, we have Pathfinding, which is responsible for giving wings to the creation of more complex characters; We can see the new Harry Potter in Augmented Reality to understand everything a little.
It should also be noted that those games that use location can now use Google Maps to enrich your virtual world, so all are more than joys for developers. Follow this link if you want to know more about how to implement it in a game.