Systems and Methods for Interacting With Virtual Nodes Within a Geographic Area

Abstract

Systems and methods for playing video games on mobile devices wherein the elements of a virtual video game world are associated with locational coordinates in the real world and the placing, removing, and interacting with a video game elements depends upon the mobile device's physical proximity to the real world coordinate associated with the video game element.

1 . A method for playing a video game comprising:
 providing a mobile device carried by a user and having a display and video game software, said mobile device communicating over a data network, and said mobile device having a real world location and said mobile device communicating with a geolocation system;   providing a database having data about one or more game elements, said data including a real world geolocation coordinate for each one of said one or more game elements, said geolocation coordinate for each one of said one or more game elements being a geolocation coordinate in the real world defined by said geolocation system;   providing a remote server communicating over a data network and communicating with said database;   said mobile device determining its geolocation coordinates with said geolocation system;   in response to said user moving a distance such that said mobile device detects a change in the geolocation coordinates of said mobile device, said mobile device determining the new geolocation coordinates of said mobile device and transmitting said new geolocation coordinates to said remote server;   in response to receiving said transmitted geolocation coordinates, said remote server selecting one or more of said one or more game elements from said database, said selection based at least in part upon a comparison of said received geolocation coordinates to said geolocation coordinates for each of said one or more game elements;   transmitting to said mobile device data about said selected game elements, said data about said selected game elements comprising said geolocation coordinates for each of said selected game elements;   in response to receiving said data about said selected game elements, said video game software causing said mobile device to display on said display a user interface, the content of said user interface based at least in part on at least one of said geolocation coordinates for each of said selected game elements.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said comparison of said received geolocation coordinates to said geolocation coordinates for each of said one or more game elements comprises a computation of the distance between said received geolocation coordinates and each of said geolocation coordinates for each of said one or more game elements. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein a game element is selected from said database only if said computed distance for said game element is less than or equal to a pre-defined threshold. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said user interface content comprises a representation of at least one of said selected game elements. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said user moving comprises walking. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said mobile device transmits said new geolocation coordinates to said remote server only if said mobile device detects a change in the geolocation coordinates of said mobile device such that said mobile device calculates that said mobile device has moved a distance greater than to equal to a pre-defined threshold. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , said method further comprising:
 mobile device transmitting to said remote server geolocation coordinates for said mobile device and data about a user interaction with said video game software;   said remote server selecting at least one of said one or more game elements from said database based at least in part upon said received geolocation coordinates and said received data;   transmitting to said mobile device data about said selected game elements;   said mobile device displaying a user interface comprising content based at least in part on at least one of said geolocation coordinates for each of said selected game elements.