Skip to main content

Belgians seek books, not monsters, in the wild

Bibliophiles, here’s a game that will get you up from your chair and out of the house. Belgian primary school headmaster Aveline Grégoire was inspired by Pokemon Go to develop an online game in which people search for books, rather than pocket monsters, according to Reuters.

“While I was arranging my library, I realized I didn’t have enough space for all my books. Having played Pokémon Go with my kids, I had the idea of releasing the books into nature,” said Grégoire.

Recommended Videos

Grégoire set up a Facebook group called “Chasseurs de livres ” (“book hunters”). There are now more than 52,000 members. A post pinned to the top of the group’s discussion timeline explains the rules of the game.

The way it works is first you wrap a book in protective plastic (to avoid moisture damage). Include a little note a comment about the book — optional. Then put the book somewhere in a public place  — releasing it into the wild.

Take a photo of the book in place, preferably with the title showing, and post it in the Facebook group, along with the title of the book and the name or hints of the location, being as specific as you wish.

When someone finds the book, they take a photo and post it in the group. Next the finder reads the books and then “hides” it again, along with a note with comments.

Grégoire’s group hides books in Belgian towns and countryside. A family in southern Belgium has made the game part of morning walks. So far they’ve found one book and “released” four others.

“My daughter said it’s like hunting for Easter eggs, only with books,” Jessica Detournay said. On the day her family left four books, by the time they got home someone had already posted on Facebook that two had been found.

Grégoire is thinking about creating an app for his book hunting in the wild game.

It’s simple to set up a Facebook group and start your own game among bibliophiles in your own town or city. Just be sure you don’t include bibliotaphs — people who hoard books and, when borrowing books, never remember to return them.

Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown Contributing Editor   As a Contributing Editor to the Auto teams at Digital Trends and TheManual.com, Bruce…
We need to start having real conversations about AI in gaming
Copilot Quake II game.

AI has become a dirty word across almost every discipline over the past few years. As big corporations keep pushing this technology forward, a vocal resistance among creatives, critics, and passionate communities has risen up in opposition. While every creative medium is at risk of AI influence now, gamers are particularly sensitive about this technology sucking the creativity and human element from our beloved medium. Even the mere mention of AI being used in game development triggers a massive backlash, but we need to start being more nuanced in how we talk about the ways AI should and should not be used. Because, like it or not, AI is going to become more ubiquitous in gaming. We can't keep talking about AI as though it is a black-and-white thing. It is a tool, and like any tool, there are ways it can be used appropriately.

The question we need to ask ourselves now is, when is it ethical to use and what crosses the line?

Read more
Mecha Break is the closest I’ve felt to piloting a real Gundam outside Japan
Key art for Mecha Break.

In 2015, in a mostly-empty arcade in Fukuoka, I slid into the pilot seat of a Gundam.

I pulled the door down, watching as it seamlessly merged with the rest of the wall and turned into a display of my surroundings. As I pulled the earpiece down, the radio crackled to life as other pilots greeted me through comms.

Read more
Still shopping? Amazon Prime Day deals going strong into day 4
We're bringing you the best Prime Day deals throughout the sales period
Best Prime Day Gift Card Deals

It’s the fourth and final day of the longest ever Amazon Prime Day event, and if you thought the best deals were behind us, think again. Amazon’s stretching this year’s event across four full days (July 8 -11 ) which means price drops are still rolling in hot, with fresh discounts landing on everything from big-name tech to everyday essentials.

There have been stellar savings so far, with the AirPods Pro 2 heading down to $149 as the best saving we've seen.

Read more