Escape Room 2 Alternatives Ende
Scat Laboy
Over the past few years, I was trying to get any tiny piece of information about the future of Wherigo from lackeys I met at events but the answer was always the same. You guessed it - noone could tell me anything about it. I'm not sure if it was just because nobody cared about that topic at GCHQ or if there was some top secret project going on but seeing the almost abandoned and hopelessly outdated "official" website Wherigo.com and the "3rd party project" wherigofoundation by Ranger Fox that was left to its fate in 2014 I'm not convinced about the "top secret project" option anymore. Whenever GCHQ asked for my opinion in a poll or survey, I asked for news or even a plan or a roadmap for Wherigo but it seems that it's just the unwanted stepchild of GCHQ.
I'd love to see synchronized logs for my Wherigo finds across geocaching.com and Wherigo.com, merged statistics to find out which of my found wherigos are still missing a completion code (and a log), a Wherigo builder further developed than to alpha state (maybe think about collaborating with external partners like urwigo who have already developed a decent application) and much more. I'm absolutely convinced that Wherigo had so much potential if it was fully integrated to geocaching.com - please consider resuming to work on that project again.
While I do enjoy them, they definitely took over the Wherigo platform in many ways. They're much easier to manage, are more accessible (both on the "playing" and "creating" fronts), and in general are less buggy/more stable than the Wherigo system.
Wherigo and Adventure Labs are two totally different game types. While Wherigo allows to build complex procedures with triggers, conditions and dependencies and even allows to implement items and characters into the story, Adventure Labs is just "five virtual finds" with a very limited set of customization options, beginning with the limit of five "zones" or "locations". Another big difference is that you'll find a physical container when you finish playing a Wherigo and with AL everything's virtual (except the owner published an AL bonus cache on geocaching.com). Wherigo cartridges can be played offline while you'll need an active internet connection to play AL. These are only three big differences and I could continue this list with another ten. If AL was ever planned as the follow-up of Wherigo, there is a lot to add to the AL app to only come close to what Wherigo offers.
But when you're a small company that has to make a choice between maintaining either (1) an old, clunky platform; held together by duct tape that the average cacher cannot create content for; or (2) a new platform, set-up so that more cachers are able to engage and create; which one are you going to pick?
Wherigoes do allow you to implement complex stories, but, it's very difficult for the average person to create such a story -- the official builder barely works, even with a builder coding skills are necessary, and the website gives inexplicable errors. It just makes sense to drop the project, and create a new platform that everyone can easily create content for.
Adventure Labs are Wherigo lite. They're popular because people get a find credit for each location, most are quick to do, the knowledge barrier to entry (make and play) is lower, and the React Native app is simple to use.
Creating anything other than something simple in Wherigo takes time, effort, and knowing what you're doing--and you have to make sure you test it to make sure what you wrote works. Finding cartridges where one was and loading them wasn't a seamless process, either. Playing a cartridge could take some time, which resulted in one find credit.
I think I might have recovered from last time and my previous job's massive amount of uncompensated overtime. I'm still hesitant to make another attempt because it would involve a not-insignificant investment of time on my part, and there's more of a chance the same result will happen again. I still pay the not-cheap hosting fees, at least. There's just a lot of work to be done to improve Wherigo and make it more accessible--too much for just one person with only a couple hours a night to spare. It would take quite a bit of time. At the moment, traveling and photographing things just feels more enjoyable and fulfilling. But I can still be persuaded, if I'm not alone in the attempt this time. I really don't want to do this alone.
I just saw this post, but I'm definitely with you Ranger Fox! I believe lots of people would come on board to support Wherigo, especially if a partnership could be worked out. I wonder if Groundspeak would consider a non for profit organization where the Wherigo Foundation partnered with Groundspeak. The Wherigo Foundation could still raise funds to support itself. The board of trustees could be made of Foundation Members as well as Groundspeak Lackey(s). I have seen a similar example of this where partnered with MIT to create the Scratch Foundation. For those who aren't familiar, Scratch is an online block coding website - very similar to the Wherigo builders. 32,000 scratch projects are released every day from all across the world. Scratch proves that people can learn coding and that its not beyond the reach of a person without coding knowledge. With the right support Wherigo could be just as popular and also much more accessible to the geocaching community.
I have always believed Wherigo is a solid product, it just needs support. If you take any broken product and let it sit stagnant for many years and allow the problems to fester, of course people will want to get rid of it. But Wherigo could be so much more.
Adventure Labs are successful because players get lots of quick easy finds and because the platform is supported. If you were to take away the geocache find from an adventure lab and also remove the support then no one would play it. This is what happened with the original Adventures app. If Waymarking, Wherigo, and bench marking all counted towards a geocache find, and those platforms were supported, they would be just as popular as Adventure Labs.
I have created and submitted my first Wherigo yesterday. I don't understand why Wherigo was abandoned. Its problems are eminently solvable, it's just no one cared to do that. Adventure Labs could have been built with the Wherigo backend. Beginner friendly builder could have lowered the barrier to entry while letting experienced creators use the real power of the underlying framework and lua scripting. I don't understand the draw of Adventure Labs. It seems rather antithetical to the spirit of geocaching. If you want to be collecting meaningless points by hundreds, then there's Munzee. And tellingly, it's mostly dead around here, so it probably is not the experience people want.
Ugh. I came here to make a similar post and request to Groundspeak (anyone listening?) that they revive the platform. At the very least, update the website with the same aesthetic and technology used in the geocaching website. And more importantly, develop and maintain a multi-platform tool for creating Wherigo cartridges. Wherigo has so much potential, but it's so inaccessible to creators.
I have made 5 different Wherigo's and 1 Adventure Lab. Two with Wherigo//Kit and the other 3 with Earwigo. I plan on making two more Wherigo's. Thanks to the Software developers for Wherigo//Kit and Earwigo and I still have a lot to learn on making better Wherigo's!
Wherigo is truly an adventure with a D/T, whereas Adventure Labs have NO D/T, well maybe 1/1. Also AL's do not count for all of your stats, nor States nor Countries. Adventure Labs are very easy to make and I agree that making an Wherigo is not an one night stand, it takes some planning.
I agree with Forest-Ghost and Roger Fox that Groundspeak should support the product or allow a partnership. The Wherigo.com website has not been updated since Last Update: 1/4/2008. At least they made an update to the iPhone app in 2021 (thank-you).
I would also like to support WIG. I'm a SW developer and would love to help maintain the codebase for the builders/players, assuming I'm not alone reverse-engineering stuff.
I don't get why WIGs are not supported by GS. Sure, only a fraction of users have the skill/time/will to develop a good cartridge, but that just means they will always be special, which is IMO good. Every WIG is a gem (other than all the reverse caches, sorry ).
I myself have developed a relatively complex cartridge with Urwigo, but I cannot even properly test it, as WhereYouGo doesn't work on my phone since the latest Android update (at least it doesn't show me my own location on a map). It's a little frustrating knowing all those hours developing would be appreciated by a small subset of cachers willing to put effort into setting up their players.
Not sure what I can do other that offer my support, I love the idea about GC partnering with WIG foundation. As I'm late to the party, I don't know the history and I'm just shocked links to WIG foundation are forbidden in listings. To be frank, this hostile behavior prevents me from paying for premium membership and reminds me of Microsoft in the 90s.
So I'll ask, will someone (Ranger Fox) try to contact GS and make a deal with them? If not, is there any plan B? Maybe develop a much more modern WIG for smartphones from scratch? The idea has a lot of potential, people pay a lot of money for escape-room-like games you can play at home and I've played WIGs outside which were more fun and for free.
If not, is there any plan B? Maybe develop a much more modern WIG for smartphones from scratch? The idea has a lot of potential, people pay a lot of money for escape-room-like games you can play at home and I've played WIGs outside which were more fun and for free.
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