If you're planning a night or two out on the town over the party season this winter, there's one app that will soon become an essential: Drunk Mode.

The new app, created by US students at the Unversity of Virginia, aims to stop you doing things you regret on a night where you might have had one too many - like making phonecalls to the wrong people.

The free app works by enabling a new 'mode' on your phone. The users envisage you will set it up before you go out for a night, you can set it to run for between three and twelve hours, and disable it by solving an addition sum.

In the Drunk Mode setting, users can choose certain numbers you'd rather not call while they are out - including ex boyfriends or the boss. So if you've ever made an embarrassing call from a party, fears of a repeat can fade away fast.

But most importantly, the app traces your location - a feature called Breadcrumbs records your whereabouts via GPS and shows you where you went during the time the app was on, and a Find My Drunk section allows friends to track users (as long as they still have their phones with them).

The app has been in testing mode around the university campus for around six months, but just released a wider update thanks to an Indiegogo funding campaign, and already has close to 100,000 users.

The app's creator, Joshua Anton, 23, decided to set it up after getting a call from an inebriated female friend during a party in his first week of university. The project received support from the university because of its safety features after a student went missing after a night out last year.

Anton said "our application makes you more aware of certain behaviours you practice, while not making you feel judged in any way, which is important for many folks."

New features the creators want to install in the next update include Snapchat Recovery - this is available currently for Android users but not iPhone users, allowing you to see any pictures you have sent on Snapchat, which are usually deleted once you have sent them, and a taxi service, linked to cab apps like Uber or Lyft.

See how it works in a video below:

New ‘Drunk Mode’ app aims to stop drunken regrets and phonecalls