Gowalla is a location based game for the iPhone made by the awesome guys at Alamofire. I first heard about it from the buzz on the net going around the time of SXSW Interactive. And when I found out that it was done by the same guys who had made PackRat (Addicting Facebook Game) I had to check it out.

As this is primarily an iPhone game, and a free download from the iTunes App Store I downloaded it straight away and started making places. As pretty much the ONLY person in Melbourne playing this, it is not as fun as it could be. But I’m being patient and waiting for my friends to realise how cool this is. I know a lot of people with iPhones, so it shouldn’t be that hard to get people involved.

Ok, so the idea of this game is to create spots and survey them. To create a spot, just be outside where the place you want to create is (GPS works better outside), fire up Gowalla, put in the name of a place and choose a category that fits well. Once you’ve done that, survey that sucker, drop an icon from your pack. This will then make you the founding surveyor for this spot, create 10 spots and you will receive a Pin of Glory. As more and more spots are made, the Gowalla team create trips, complete one of those trips and be rewarded, an example of a trip is the Austin Bar Hop which consists of 14 bars across Austin, Texas. Check into those bars, and win yourself a pin.

I’ve created about 30 places, 3 in Perth and the rest in Melbourne. I will be heading back to Perth in a few weeks, so Perth peeps I’m looking at you to make some more spots for me to discover. As I have said before, I haven’t found anyone else in Melbourne yet who is playing, so hopefully this post will get out there and get people to get into Gowalla.

As a special treat, I will be receiving some Gowalla swag from the awesome Gowalla team, in this will be an American Apparel Gowalla tee. When I get it I’ll post a picture up on my Flickr. So I’m going to give away this tee to one lucky reader, but there’s a catch, get out there an play some Gowalla. Show me 10 spots you’ve made in Melbourne or Perth and the shirt is yours. First in best dressed, literally as you will win this awesome shirt!!! Drop a line at contact[at]studioprisoner[dot]com or comment below if you’ve made it.