We have a winner.
Nokia just announced the winner of its Mobile Game Innovation Challenge. And it’s all…augmented.
I believe the first to break the news was the Earth Times.
In our previous coverage of the competition, we spotted 6 out of the top 10 finalists as augmented reality games. It was a good day.
Kudos to Different Game studio and their creation: Ghostwire, an augmented reality game where players can use the camera on their mobile device to find ghosts.
Just in time for Halloween. How felicitous. Arg…
Different Game is walking away 40,000 EUR richer. Back to Sweden to complete the game and make it a mega success.
***
Update: Stephan from Int13 unearthed the trailer of Ghostwire, and he claims it isn’t a real augmented reality game because it doesn’t register in 3d.
He’s right. But is the experience breaking away from traditional virtual games and encouraging the player to explore reality?
See for yourself in this clip. Or read an interview with creator Tom Soderlund on PoketGamer
Filed under: AR Games | Tagged: AR Games, Different Game, Ghostwire, Mobile Augmented Reality, mobile games, Mobile innovation challenge, nokia, Tom Soderlund |
Games Alfresco 
Hi,
This game seems to be cool, a good idea to use the camera, but it cannot strictly be called “augmented reality”.
From Wikipedia
“Azuma defines an augmented reality system as one that
* combines real and virtual,
* is interactive in real-time,
* is registered in three dimensions.”
GhostWire is clearly *not* registered in 3D.
Dear Stephane,
Believe me, I would have loved it if Kweekies had won the competition. I am sure you will win such competitions in the future, because you get it.
However, I wouldn’t dismiss games which are not pure AR.
A new industry is emerging and the more we promote great AR experiences, the more we will all be rewarded.
Having said that – all I know about GhostWire is based on a couple of sentences in the finalists description. Have you seen more than that? Can you share?
Good luck!
Ori
Yes, a video of the game is available here :
[video src="http://www.gamingchallenge.org/images/winners/videos/1st_Ghostwire_Trailer.mp4" /]
My only concern is about the term “augmented reality” being wrongly used, I don’t think that all camera games can be qualified as AR games..
Maybe I’m wrong and GhostWire will be a true AR game in the end, but for now the video doesn’t show 3D registration.
I would qualify GhostWire as Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is not a mathematical object, it has no strict definition but only vague cloud of meanings. GhostWire has some kind of 2d image tracking, albeit not quite stable and it definitely try to “augment” reality. RjDj has no video or geo tracking either, but I count it as AR in my books.
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