Play as you commute

Chromaroma, set to launch later this month, will reward players for using public transport. You'll be able to win points for avoiding the rush hour, travelling to a new part of the capital, or even completing your Boris bike ride to work faster.

Crucially, the game will also let you compete against your neighbours or even take on the rest of London to try and top the commuter leaderboards.

Developed by internet firm Mudlark, which also created a Twitter version of Romeo and Juliet with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the game works by using Transport for London's journey logs. Every time you swipe an Oyster card or put a key into a Boris bike docking station, you are awarded points.

While services such as Foursquare and Gowalla already let people track their location, Chromaroma's developers say it will offer a real game.

"We are a game with a capital G," said Toby Barnes of Mudlark. "Other services rely on you having a phone, and checking in when you get to a location. We just need you to register your Oyster card, and then you are playing every time you use it."

The game will not offer prizes, but instead rely on people's competitive nature. "What we are doing is making your daily commute into a game — every time you swipe your card, you are unlocking something in the game," says Barnes.

"We definitely hope to make money by letting firms sponsor achievements but we also think we will discover a lot about how Londoners actually travel. Perhaps we can even make people explore the city a little bit more."

Sign up for the game at chromaroma.com

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