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We are all aware of how obsessed we’re all becoming with technology. Technology is great – it provides us with amazing opportunities to communicate and share. However, young people all over the world are becoming increasingly reliant on their phones – opting to sit inside staring at a screen instead of creating memories outside.
Funster is an innovative gaming studio revolutionizing outdoor games as we know them. They are mixing technology with the nostalgic values that come hand in hand with classic childhood games.
Funster Brings Back the Nostalgia Into Mobile Gaming
Funster believes that all the amazing memories we create from playing outside, are being lost in the world of Snapchat and Instagram. Using mobile games, they hope to achieve “togetherness, energy, and discovery”.
The startup is a mobile games developer with a focus on mixed and augmented reality games for children. By combining mobile technology with classic childhood games, they want to create a recipe for a healthier, more interactive world.
Funster ingeniously uses the technology causing the problem, to help solve the issue. The games are targeted at the ages of 8 to 13, although everybody can get on board. We can probably all agree that we should spend a little less time aimlessly scrolling through social media.
Using Mobile Technology For Group Interaction
Funster combines augmented reality and mobile sensors with GPS, camera, messaging, Bluetooth and WIFI. Their games, like Pic-it-up, requires players to explore their surroundings using GPS, walk around and solve real-time picture quests using their phones’ cameras.
and mobile sensors with GPS, camera, messaging, Bluetooth and WIFI. Their games, like Pic-it-up, requires players to explore their surroundings using GPS, walk around and solve real-time picture quests using their phones’ cameras.
Funster gives children an opportunity to get outside, be active and work with others to overcome challenges. The Funster team believes, “today, unfortunately, kids spend a lot of time in front of screens, which makes them less physically active and not practicing social skills compared to previous generations”.
Social media can create a multitude of problems, especially for young people. Giving them a chance to distance themselves from this, even for a short amount of time each day, can make the world of a difference.
The Future Of Funster
Coming originally from Israel, the development team is supervised by the Potsdam Transfer and financially supported by the EXIST Start-up Germany programme of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi).
Although Funster is still in its testing phase, the startup is already making waves in the gaming world. Pic-it-up was awarded a 3rd place at The Big Indie Pitch GamesCon 2018 in Cologne. They further hope their project will incite more parents to acknowledge the negative impacts smartphones are having on their children and help them overcome this current problem.