Belgian Pokémon Go Clone Have Players Hunt Real Books

A Belgian primary school headmaster took inspiration from Pokémon Go and developed a game where players hunt books instead of digital monsters.

Without a multi-million dollars budget and a highly skilled team of game developers, Aveline Gregoire had to forgo the augmented reality aspects of the game. Instead, he – and the tens of thousands of players – relied on Facebook.

Gregoire created a Facebook group called “Chasseurs de livres” (“Book hunters”) where players post pictures and hints about where they’ve hidden books for others to find. When a player “catches” a book, he gets to read it before “releasing” it back into the wild for others to find.

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

More than 50,000 players have joined the game’s community during its first week. Gregoire is currently considering options to create an app for the game.