Today, the app for kids called «Mehr Platz für dich» (german for «More space for you») has been launched as part of a campaign by children advocacy group Pro Juventute. The campaign is an appeal for more accessible public space suitable and safe for kids in Switzerland. Gbanga has developed the corresponding game app.
«Mehr Platz für dich» is a app for kids by Pro Juventute. It enables kids to tag and to rate fun places in Switzerland— in a playful way from their perspective. Together, the participating children create an atlas of interesting places for kids by kids.
Rules of the game
In the app «Mehr Platz für dich» kids tag interesting places with a touch on an accessible map. After that, a mini-games assists the children to categorize those places. Activity in the app is rewarded with points. After scoring enough points, a kid reaches the next level and unlocks new body parts for their popular monster avatar.
A Serious Game
The app «Mehr Platz für dich» is a great example of a so called Serious Game, a game designed not only to entertain, but to tackle a real and serious challenge. Thanks to the smartly adjusted game mechanics, children have fun and build together something larger, an atlas for kids by kids.
Video trailer
Offline map for kids
The project is based on the map material from open-source project OpenStreetMap.org. Because kids use the app mainly outdoor, the app has to work offline without any internet connectivity. For that reason, we developed an offline map for Switzerland. With compression and vectorization, we were able to reduce the size of the Android app to under 100 MB, including the map of Switzerland, thousands of playgrounds and many photos.
Gbanga’s contribution
Gbanga (Millform Inc) planned, designed and developed the app «Mehr Platz für dich» in collaboration with Blofeld Communications GmbH and the specialists at Fachstelle Spielraum aus Bern, and on behalf of the client Pro Juventute. Gbanga also developed and runs the server required for the app.
Please find more information about the appfor children and for parents at www.projuventute.ch/freiraum.
Quick facts
- Thousands of playground already included
- Over 200 photos of playgrounds
- Tours in several towns in Switzerland (work in progress)
- Millions of possibilities and combinations of monster avatar looks
- Filter for places on the map
- Based on map material from OpenStreetMap
- Available for free in italian, french and german
Screenshots
Design your avatars individually
Reach higher levels and unlock avatar body parts
Play mini games and tag real-world places
Sources
The app uses map material and playground positions from the OpenStreetMap.org database which is published under the Open Database License und Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
The offline map material was vectorized into the MVT format with mapnik-vector-tile and mapzen/vector-datasource. github.com/mapbox/mapnik-vector-tile, github.com/mapzen/vector-datasource
Fabula font
The app uses the Fabula 2015 font by Sue Walker, Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading, UK. Until recently, this font was available on www.kidstype.org