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New App Lets You ‘Assassinate’ People in Real Life
- WhiteFoxx 13y agoClever, but it will never take off. These real world type games always tank. Why? Because no one wants to go running off randomly looking for a stranger whilst looking like a complete twat. And making actually pay for this? pfft
- anigbrowl 13y agoAmusing concept until the cops show up with real guns and the wrong idea.
- zhemao 13y agoYeah, that's what I thought. These days you can't even carry a rice cooker around without people freaking out. Imagine the chaos that would ensure from people carrying around concealable "guns" and "shooting" each other.
- ericcumbee 13y agoMaybe make them look more like Star Trek Phasers palm phaser (TNG,DS9, Voyager) and less like a gun.
- NAFV_P 13y agoJust wearing google-goggles is enough to cause mass spleen-venting, who needs a 'duster'.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoThis appears to be a digital variation of an already famous and commonly played game called Assassin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_%28game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_%28game%29 That said, considering the negative attention received by the latter, which is remarkably benign, I don't know how Dustcloud will fair with authorities.
- girvo 13y agoI much preferred "Get Down, Mr President!". You have a group of people, usually at a party. One person, without saying anything puts their two fingers together and up to their ear, as if they're talking on a hidden microphone like in the movies. Everyone else sees, and copies. The last person is "Mr President", and as you're all secret service, you tackle them to save their life ;)
- dpcan 13y agoYes! And the old creative way was so GREAT - all these new "toys" seem very unnecessary. This had to be one of the most fun role-playing games we did in my first year of college. Looking over my shoulder going into the Library for Nerf packing friends, then having to scan the dorm room for watches with timers or booby traps. Or the worst - making sure my soda didn't have a blob of Tobasco at the bottom of it at lunch :) Awesome memories. Can kids these days still play this type of game in college? Or do they end up getting expelled or arrested or something? I was in college a couple years shy of kids having cell phones, and South Park and Jerry Springer were the world's worst (and best) evils. It was a great time.
- InXorWeTrust 13y agoThere is a similar version that I know a friend plays at a large university. It's Humans vs. Zombies. If you get "bit", you are a zombie and have to wear something that identifies you as such (normally a bandanna tied around an arm). If you're a human, you carry a nerf gun with you. If you hit a zombie with a nerf bullet, they can't bite you for a while (next time you see them, or such).
- nammi 13y agoYea, this is a popular game. For a while (at least at a big state school), the rules were similar to "Assassin", but have since been changed. At my university, the game is only 'on' during defined sessions, typically after classes have ended. So people aren't sprinting through large groups of students waving fake guns, and campus police know when the game is being played. It works out because the people with Nerf guns are in large groups, and the people hiding and sneaking around don't have guns.
- sonier 13y agoHere's their kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enter-the-dustcloud/dustcloud-turn-your-street-into-a-battlefield http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enter-the-dustcloud/dust...
- hngiszmo 13y agook, sorry but if you can't "shoot" with the app but require a custom tool, it will never ever reach saturation in any area (outside New York) for it being fun to play against strangers.
- btown 13y agoIt doesn't need saturation if, say, someone buys them for their entire office/fraternity/club as a team-building exercise.
- PhasmaFelis 13y agoWhoa whoa whoa. You have to pay for the gear, and also for each bullet?
- girvo 13y agoJust like an actual gun, only virtual!
- ianmcgowan 13y agoIt seems like the "guns and bullets" aspect of this are a) going to be a problem with the authorities, and b) an unnecessary cost. Why not just an app that lets you play spy vs spy or zombie vs human based on proximity? Shaking your phone at another player within 3m counts as a kill.
- jrockway 13y ago5 cents per bullet? What ever happened to just paying $40 for a game and getting to use it forever? (This killed Candy Crush for me. I love the gameplay dynamic and the graphics, but the constant upselling just makes me want me smash my phone into a fine paste and then feed the paste to the game's developers.)
- err4nt 13y agofreemium means no matter how much you pay, you never own it
- weixiyen 13y agoIf you are good you can keep getting bullets by killing people and stealing their bullets. If they charge $40, nobody is going to play the game. Not a supporter of the app, but it's pretty obvious the pay for bullet business model is the correct decision. It's hardly much at all considering the potential entertainment value for those who play it. Consider how much you would have to pay for paintball. It's strange, it seems like on every single topic, nobody on HN wants anybody else to make any money at all.
- anu_gupta 13y agoGiven the prevalence of gun ownership and concealed carry permits in the US, this is a tragedy waiting to happen.
- runjake 13y agoI have several rifles, including an AR-15 "assault" rifle and an Yugoslavian SKS with a bayonet and primer-fired grenade launcher on it[1]. I also have several handguns which I very often carry concealed. I have no desire to shoot someone. I don't fantasize about power trip, fatalistic shooting sprees. I'm not afraid of being out in society. I don't pose in the mirror with my guns. I don't buy all the latest accessories I see in Call of Duty. I score way below average on all those psychopathy tests floating around the Internet. So what's the catch? Nothing. I'm the same as the next dude. 1. Disclosure: I may end up using the grenade launcher some day. They have some great aftermarket grenade cages that happen to be compatible with tennis balls.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- graeme 13y agoThe average gun owner isn't necessarily relevant to shooting sprees. Shooting sprees are rare events. Those that commit them are NOT the typical gun owner. Easy access to gun ownership prima facie facilitates shooting sprees by allowing the outliers easier access to guns. Pointing this out is not necessarily an argument for gun ownership restrictions. I'm replying more specifically to the idea that your experience has any bearing on the relation between gun ownership laws and shooting sprees.
- rahimnathwani 13y ago"I also have several handguns which I very often carry concealed." I'm curious - why? I don't generally carry around stuff that I don't think I'll need, particularly if those things have to go on my person (e.g. in my pockets) rather than in a bag that I can put down when I'm stationary.
- joe_the_user 13y agoMy shallow Google search seems to indicate smart phones with IR are not common (though clearly I'm a smart phone ignoramus). If phones with IR were common, you could just download an Assassin app or any of a variety of other apps for impromptu game playing. Custom made IR toys clearly are a step backward in any case.
- caio1982 13y agoSo they basically made a real http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotcha!_(1985_film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotcha!_(1985_film) app and stuff. I wonder how many developers of the app watched the film when they were kids... I mean, if they're that old :-)
- Hrodban 13y agoWill wait for new news headlines where some poor chump gets shot by the authorities because of aiming a device at someone else (like James Bond). As with kids with toy guns in the past. Just google for "officer shot 13 year old with toy gun"
- FellowTraveler 13y agoCops are going to shoot these people.
- lowglow 13y agoIf you want to know where they stole the basic idea from, my friend Yutai Liao created http://www.streetwars.net/ http://www.streetwars.net/ years and years ago.