Akoha: Serious games and 'playing it forward'

Raph had a pointer to a pretty intriguing new game & company called Akoha.

Dubbed a 'social reality game', Akoha centers around the play of cards. On those cards are tasks, like "give someone a book" or "Send drinks to a couple in love". 

You register has having received the cards (by either typing in a code or snapping a pic of the 2D barcode with your phone cam) and then note when/where you accomplished the task in order earn 'karma points' and level up within their game system .

You can track the progress of individual cards as well, making this kind of a MMO meets serious games meets "where's george". This comic explains the whole game pretty well.

I immediately ordered a number of card packs but am worried that they won't arrive before GDC, as I think they'd be awesome to be using there.

As Raph points out, this is pretty close to Cory's Whuffie brought to life. (minus the viewable-by-anyone indicator in Down and Out. Maybe a FB feed? How about bad-ass hats, t-shirts, pins, etc for Level 10 bad-ass charity cleric?)

A very cool concept.

What's more, I looked up info on the company, only to find that their based in Montreal, right near Deluth. (If anyone at Akoha ends up reading this, how about a special edition card for "buy someone at Akoha a smoked meat at Schwartz's". I'll play it next time I'm in town!