I was recently asked how to mark a specific area in the game that is strictly out of bounds for the players. There are  a couple of ways to do that which I will outline below.

Pins with negative value

When creating outdoor games in Loquiz  a game creator can mark a location and the radius in witch the question will  be activated.  The standard radius is 10 meters. The  location will be activated when a player enters the area. The   game creator can set every area independently and make it as large as needed.  It is not uncommon to use 500m  or even more for the  radius.

You can also set negative values to questions. If you set the question type as “no answer” then that means that the player will get negative points instantly when they enter the area.

There are few issues with this approach:

• the GPS is not very exact, so when teams are near the area it may become  activated.
• if the area is activated once, then it disappears from the map, so the area becomes unblocked
• last but not least, it is pretty hard to cover the specific area with the  location bubbles

Drawing on a map

An alternative possibility is to use the map overlay and mark the area clearly on the map. This can not be done directly. To do that just open the map area in  Loquiz, put the map full screen and print the screen. Then just paste it into your favourite image editor (very good opensource option is GIMP) and mark the area. Then export to png and upload as the map layer. It should be quite easy to calibrate and position the map as it just  fits. Here is the same area as before.

It is easier to understand and covers the area better, but it is just a markup, so there are no penalties even if the team actually enters the area.

These were the two ways to mark out-of-bounds area. How would you do it in Loquiz?