Robert Bowling's 'The Human Element' merges real and game world via mobile API

"The Human Element" will be sport cross-platform functionality via Googlemaps and FourSquare API.

The Human Element, the first project from former Infinity Ward lead Robert Bowling's new studio Robotoki, will merge the real world and game world through mobile location services.

Players will be able to visit real world locations and find resources which can be transferred to the game. "Say you're at home, you're playing Human Element," Bowling described. "You're hurt and you need medical supplies. You don't want to risk going out to forage in the game world... but you know that there's a pharmacy four miles down the road in the real world."

The game world will overlay the Google Maps and FourSquare Business APIs. Checking into places on FourSquare, for example, translates into scavenging the same location for supplies in The Human Element.

Players on different platforms can form alliances, with those participating via the iPad component's resource management game collecting and feeding resources into their companion's console game.

"These are not independent experiences, they're additive to each other," Bowling said in an interview with GamesIndustry.

The Human Element is scheduled to release in 2015.