Location-based “Mixed Reality” mobile gameGbangahas launched an API, and it wants developers to hack away to actively modify gameplay, contribute game content and more.

Gbanga is based around ‘gamifying’ your surroundings. As you walk around in real life, you’ll be presented with nearby challenges such as finding and collecting special items or competing with others for virtual ‘territory’. As you play, you can earn points to move up the leaderboard, with occasional ‘real’ sponsored prizes on offer too.

Now the Swiss team behind Gbanga is opening it up to the imagination of the crowd. “The majority of gaming experiences are the sole realization of their respective game development studio,” says the studio’s Matthias Sala. “No doubt the designers of these games had great fun creating their worlds and stories. However the playing community has always shown an interest in contributing their own content.” Gbanga’s ‘Puppetmaster’ API and Quest Design Kit tools aim to achieve this.

To promote the new developer tools, Gbanga is taking part in Hackathon at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam next week. Coders are invited to create quests, side-quests, extensions, mini-games, mashups and mobile clients. You can find full details of Gbanga’s development toolshereand information on the TNW Hackathonhere.

Gbanga’s app is currently available foriOSandJava/J2ME handsets.

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Story byMartin SFP Bryant

Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletter PreSeed Now and technology and media consultancy Big Revolution. He was previously(show all)Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletterPreSeed Nowand technology and media consultancyBig Revolution. He was previously Editor-in-Chief at TNW.

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