Laptop and Wherigo

[+thetadcat]

Is there a way to play the Wherigo player on a standard laptop? I saw this possibility mentioned in a cache page. The author said someone could be at home on the PC and the other out caching and they could communicate via cell phone to play the game.

 

Can anyone tell me more about this?

 

Thanks,

 

TheTadCat

[Ranger Fox]

While that method won't work on every cartridge (I'll mention why later), it is possible to do. Here's how to do it:

 

The person at home needs to have the Wherigo Emulator set up and running on his/her computer. The emulator is included with the Groundspeak Wherigo Builder and Urwigo (at least I think so) applications. For the Builder, just open it and go to Tools: Emulator. The Builder will ask you where the cartridge is, so browse to the folder. After that, the emulator will come up and show you all cartridges within that folder. Select the one you want to play. At this point, the person at home is ready.

 

At this point, the person in the field needs to start off at the starting coordinates. This will be where the Lackey icon is in the emulator (as far as I've heard, his name is David; from here on out, I refer to the icon by name for brevity). The person at home needs to switch to satellite view and describe to the person in the field where the next zone is. The field player needs to walk there while the home player drags David to it. The home player will then need to continue playing the cartridge, dragging David here to there, until the cartridge asks a question. The field player will then need to look around the area and provide that answer to the home player. Continue in this fashion until you complete the cartridge.

 

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Now, remember I said this won't work for every cartridge? Some people have their cartridge set up so it won't play in the emulator. For me, I was evil in one of my cartridges; I allowed only some of the answers to be entered by someone playing on the emulator--and even then, if it detected the emulator, it would take the person to the wrong final location without so much as a word or warning. Another cartridge I played in South Carolina had all its zones invisible. I had to drag David around until I came across one of those zones (I had a good idea where they were since this was a cartridge at a zoo). By the way, once I hacked the South Carolina cartridge, I went out, paid admission to the zoo, and did the cartridge the normal way and had much more fun than I had when hacking it. (While I may hack a cartridge, I do end up playing it in the field. I just like the challenge of hacking it.) Since people in my area aren't Wherigo-savvy, I haven't added anything to my latest cartridges to prevent them from being played in the emulator. I'm just glad someone took an interest. (And yes, you heard right; I'm the only person in my area that knows or cares enough about Wherigo to create cartridges. People do play them, but not many.)

 

So, anyway, just be careful which cartridge you try to play like this because not all can be played in the emulator. How will you know? Aside from asking the author, you can never be 100% certain. Usually, though, if the cartridge doesn't complain about the emulator after the first couple zones, it will usually allow you to complete it.

 

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I hope that answers any questions you might have. Feel free to ask more. I'm caching around Las Vegas at the moment, so if you have any further questions, my answer may be a little delayed.