Wherigo Player FAQ

What is the Wherigo Player?

The Wherigo Player is a GPS-enabled application that allows you to play interactive games, tours, and other experiences in the real world. The main screen of the Wherigo Player has 4 sections: "Locations," "You See," "Inventory," and "Tasks." As a player walks into, out of or even close to the areas shown in the "Locations" tab, the player can interact with what is displayed in the "You See" tab.

Fans of adventure games will likely see similarities in this interface.

  • Locations - All the visible locations you can navigate to. When you walk into these areas you can interact with the items and characters that appear in your "You See" section.
  • You See - Items and characters you can interact with at your real-world location.
  • Inventory - Items that you currently have with you. These items can be used to interact with items and characters in the "You See" section.
  • Tasks - A list of current and previously completed tasks to help you decide your next step. Tasks are essential for keeping you on track during game play.

Photo Caption: Wherigo main screen featured on the Garmin Colorado.

How do you find an experience, or cartridge, to play?

You'll first need to find a Wherigo cartridge to download from the web site. Use the search options on the right-hand side of the page to see if there is a cartridge available to download in your area. If not, download a Play Anywhere cartridge.

Once you have downloaded the cartridge from the web site, copy it to your device.

After you have downloaded the cartridge to your device, start the Wherigo Player application. The new cartridge should appear as one of the items on the load screen. If the GPS is turned on, the distance and direction from your current location to the cartridge’s starting location should also be displayed.

Note: If you are using a Pocket PC and do not see your cartridge in the list, try renaming the file (but be sure to keep the .gwc extension!). There is a known Pocket PC issue where some cartridge names don’t show up in the Wherigo Player cartridge load screen.

Select a cartridge to load and you're ready to go! Just make sure to save often.

How do you play a Wherigo cartridge?

Pay attention to any messages that appear on the Player screen. You can navigate to locations and interact with virtual objects and characters. You will usually have a list of tasks in the cartridge. Make sure you complete all of them! Look at this list any time you are not sure what to do next.

You interact with objects and characters through specialized actions. For example, you can "talk" to a character or "pick up" virtual objects. You can also use items with other items or characters. For example, you can use a key to unlock a chest or give money to a virtual character.

In the screenshot to the right, you are interacting with a rocket ship in the Wherigo Player Tutorial. Under the "Actions" button, you can decide to scan the rocket ship with your transponder. These actions are defined by the author of the cartridge.

Can you save and restore your experience in the player?

We recognize that being able to save an experience is a pretty standard option for gaming platforms. However, you should be aware that if there are countdown timers running in the game, they continue to run even after you save and exit the cartridge. So if you have a certain amount of time to rescue a maiden before she is eaten by the dragon, you can't simply save the cartridge and come back later to rescue her. The maiden is still in distress, after all.

Your saved game is connected to your individual device and to the player that downloaded the cartridge. Sharing your saved game with another player won't work.

You'll also need to save your experience if you want to unlock the cartridge on Wherigo.com.

What is "unlocking a cartridge"?

Once you complete a Wherigo cartridge, you can save the file and upload it to the web site to unlock it. As long as the author set the cartridge to complete after you accomplished the required tasks, the site will automatically mark it as complete. Alternatively, if the author of the cartridge gives you a personal unlock code, you can use that to complete the cartridge as well.

When you unlock a cartridge, you will receive a special Cartridge Completion Badge for that cartridge. The badge is displayed in your profile so that everyone can see which cartridges you’ve played successfully!

Do the Wherigo cartridges contain DRM?

No. They are compiled binaries and don't contain any Digital Rights Management (DRM) or encryption.

We made it intentionally difficult to simply open the file and see all the secrets in a gaming experience. We expect there will be cheating tools but we're trying to keep the honest people honest.

What devices run the Wherigo Player?

The Wherigo Engine is built in C, so any platform that has GPS and can support the C programming language can most likely run the Wherigo Player. Depending on the device, a custom user interface may have to be built to support it. We encourage all GPS enabled device manufacturers to contact us if they are interested in having Wherigo Player run on their platform.

Currently the Wherigo Player can run on the Garmin Colorado and most GPS-enabled PocketPC devices. Our goal is to make these experiences work on as many platforms as possible.

How can I build my own Wherigo cartridges?

Great question! You can create your own experiences with the free Wherigo Builder for Windows. You can also learn more about Wherigo cartridges and how to build your own without the Wherigo Builder.