PROJECT / 03.1 Location-based campaign
WORLD//ZERO
A location-based simulation thriller in which the real city becomes part of a larger digital world.
Why I built it
One persistent game, hidden underneath the real city.
WORLD//ZERO is the first attempt to prove what a Kuro's City Quest experience can be. It is not a collection of unrelated outdoor puzzles: the interface is part of the fiction, and the same identity and party continue through the wider campaign.
What it does
One identity and one party move between digital objectives and physical locations.
Players enter through a closed-beta access flow, choose a character class and form or join a party. The party selects a city region and receives objectives tied to real-world nodes while the campaign tracks its wider progress.
Beta access
Register through the closed access-key flow.
Player identity
Keep a persistent profile and character class.
Parties
Create a group or join one by invite code.
Regions
Select the next simulation area as a party.
Destination nodes
Use the map to reach real-world locations.
Progression
Carry campaign and objective state between sessions.
How it's built
The server enforces the entire closed beta flow, from access key to objective.
A plain Node.js and MariaDB application powers the framework-free frontend. HTTP routing, domain validation, services and SQL repositories stay separated; passwords use scrypt, sessions are signed and short-lived, and Google Maps renders the active destination node.
- Node.js
- MariaDB
- HTML / CSS / JavaScript
- Google Maps
The browser never connects directly to MariaDB.
Player, class, party, region and objective state persists between physical sessions.
Security headers, same-origin checks, rate limits and transactional writes protect the closed-beta flow.
Where it stands
IN DEVELOPMENT
WORLD//ZERO is an active prototype with the closed-beta gateway, player identity, class selection, party flow, region selection and first location-objective structure implemented. It is not publicly accessible yet.