''Shadow Cities'' was an early location-based

mobile game A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to ...

, created by the

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

company Grey Area. The game took place in a "parallel world", using the player's physical

GPS location Geodetic coordinates are a type of curvilinear coordinate system, curvilinear orthogonal coordinate system used in geodesy based on a ''reference ellipsoid''. They include geodetic latitude (north/south) , ''longitude'' (east/west) , and ellipsoi ...

on an in-game

map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...

, battling other nearby players. The game was exclusively available for iPhone devices. Development started in 2008, only a year after the first iPhone was released, with $2.5 million of

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

funding. The game was initially launched on 10 November 2010 in Finland, expanding to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and 13

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an countries in 2011. However, Grey Area shut down the game on 7 October 2013.

References

2010 video games Fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing games Inactive massively multiplayer online games Indie games IOS games IOS-only games Location-based games Video games developed in Finland {{Videogame-stub