Wherigo - Beginners guide

What's Wherigo

Wherigo is a location-aware gaming platform, which enables you to play a location-based games, which can be downloaded freely from www.wherigo.com. What a Wherigo game looks like is different from author to author. Most are puzzle-adventure games with a plot in which you play the main role. They however can be simple tourist guides.

Here are some screenshots of a game called "Maksimir Virtual Orienteering":



Although most of the games are designed to be played at a certain location, there are those which can be played anywhere (usually a large open field is required).

There's a nice gameplay video here: Wherigo Walkthough GC43K75

What do I need to play the game

Garmin Colorado and Oregon receivers come with a pre-installed player. To play the game on your mobile phone you need to install the player yourself. This is super-simple, since players are available at the app stores:

• for Android phones install WhereYouGo
• for iPhones install Whereigo

How do I install a game

Wherigo games, also known as cartridges, can be downloaded from the www.wherigo.com. To be able to download a game you first need to register. After registering you can search for a game cartridge in your area or a "play anywhere" cartridge. When you found a game you want to play, you need to download it to your computer. Make sure to select "Pocket PC device" under "Download cartridge file for".

After the download is finished you need to copy the file over cable to your mobile phone into the player app's folder...

Installing game on Android

• connect your phone to your computer via USB cable
• on your phone turn on USB storage (alternative instructions, older phones)
• from your PC access the phone's storage
• and locate the to the whereyougo folder on your phone
• disconnect your phone
• run the WhereYouGo player

Installing on iPhone

• connect your phone to your computer via cable
• drag & drop the game file to Whereigo app folder in iTunes
• disconnect your device
• run the Wherigo player

Installing on Garmin Oregon or Colorado

Oregon or Colorado game installation process is a bit different. While downloading the game from the Wherigo website make sure to select the apropriate device under "Download cartridge file for". After the file is downloaded, do the following:

• connect the device via USB cable to your computer
• copy the file to the Wherigo folder on the device
• safely unplug the device from the computer
• start the Wherigo player and enjoy

You can have a look at the video instructions here: How to upload a Wherigo Cartridge to a GPS

Installing the game without a computer

Unfortunately downloading and installing the game directly from the mobile phone is at the moment not possible. This will probably not change in the near future, since the company which made Wherigo (Groundspeak) has stopped developing the platform. On the other hand, third-party developers are prevented from developing their own game installer due to restrictive terms of use of the Wherigo website.

This very much limits the availability of this platform and hinders it's success.

How to play the game

Playing a game is really simple: run the player on your mobile phone. Select the game you want to play and hit "start".

After completing a game you will be given a "unlock code". You can use this code to "unlock the cartridge". You do this by visiting the game's page on the Wherigo website and clicking the "UNLOCK" button on the left. Basically what this does is it gives feedback to the author of the game that somebody has played and finished his game.

If you liked the game I would encouraging you to do this - it's a way of saying thanks to game's author. While you're there you might also leave a comment telling other potential gamers what a wonderful game it was.

How can I create my own game?

It's easier than you might think. There's an excellent free tool called Urwigo, which enables you to develop a game even if you don't have any programming skills. On YouTube there's a very good introductory video on this subject "Wherigo Starting Tutorial using Urwigo".

There are also a lot of other resources such as "Do you know WHERIGO" 3-part series (part 1 - introduction, part 2 - the tools, part 3 - game building basics).

You can share you games by uploading them to www.wherigo.com. To reach a larger audience you can place your game at www.geocaching.com. Games placed there must however include a physical geocache.