The production values on these indie game trailers boggle my mind.
The game initially reminds me of Conquest, but with a lot more bells and whistles. Clover Studios has brought together location based gaming and tower defense, which makes for a good peanut butter and chocolate combination. Though with any multi-player strategy game, off-time balancing will be an issue.
I’ve only just started messing with the game, so I’ll be sure to report back next week with a longer term impression of the game play. So far it appears to be a step up from the other AR games we’re used to seeing these days, but we’ll see.
Having spent a fair amount of time hiking or skiing in the Rocky Mountains, I can attest to the usefulness of this app–The Canadian Mountain Parks Companion: Banff Edition. In a city, it can be easy enough to use a top-down map rather than an AR app because the logical and easy-to-follow nature of the modern city. The outdoors have a sneaky way of looking the same.
I’ve had many an argument with a family member about: “which mountain peak is that over there.” Even holding a map doesn’t help you because the distances are so huge. This would be an easy way to understand the topographical vistas at an app’s glance.
Time again for another bout of augmented reality links:
Keep calm and carry on: the United Kingdom is looking to use augmented reality in the fight against terrorism. Have an idea on how to make this happen? help them out.
Apple patents augmented reality first-person shooting games. Not that they are the first ones who thought about it.
Augmented Planet holding their second annual Readers Choice Award. There’s a Samsung phone to be won.
This week’s video shows the creative things you can do using computer vision, projector and balls. It’s called Bounce, and apparently was made by Eberhard Gräther as a student project. If you like it, I suggest checking Gräther’s site for other interesting (non AR related) projects:
Is it art or is it an airport screening machine? And with so much memory in the cloud, how much of your daily life could the computers record?
Please Empty your Pockets is an installation that consists of a conveyor belt with a computerized scanner that records and accumulates everything that passes under it. The public may place any small item on the conveyor belt, for example keys, ID cards, wallets, worry beads, condoms, notepads, phones, coins, dolls, credit cards, etc. Once they pass under the scanner, the objects reappear on the other side of the conveyor belt beside projected objects from the memory of the installation. As a real item is removed from the conveyor belt, it leaves behind a projected image of itself, which is then used to accompany future objects. The piece remembers up to 600,000 objects which are displayed beside new ones that are added to the installation. The piece intends to blend presence and absence using traditional techniques of augmented reality, such as those described by Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1940 novel “La Invención de Morel”.
When ever I see these AR art programs, it makes me think of Gibson’s Virtual Light. The graphics in this little app have a good contrast against the world, which makes them a little easier to see. Also wish you could see these on Layar, Junaio, etc. Art should be viewer agnostic.
Real 3D drawing in Augmented Reality on an iPhone, using multi-touch! Anyone that has made or attempted to make an Augmented Reality program can tell you that getting the right graphical overlay, placement, etc… is not the easiest thing in the world to do. However, Scrawl here has made it incredibly easy to add that digital augmentation onto whatever marker you create as easy as pointing your finger!
Take a look, pay particular attention to how a graphical imagery can be added in real-time and interact with the environment instantly (ie, look at the shadows! Wow!) Scrawl is doing for Augmented Reality what Napster did for acquiring MP3s!
Post update – the original video was pulled down, but luckily was uploaded again, and some of my questions were answered (in red)
I have so many questions about the next video, and no answers –
Is it real? yes.
Is it an official Star Wars game? probably.
How can I get it? On the Appstore somewhere in mid November. Look for “Falcon Gunner”.
I acknowledge that this game is probably not much better than the lurid Firefighter 360, but I feel compelled to try it out, attracted by some mysterious force.
After a short break, here’s another weekly linkfest:
“AR is not going to work well for most things but it’s going to be very good for certain uses. Right now I’m very keen at trying to understand what those things might be”. Tish Shute interviews Chris Arkenberg.
Just in time for Halloween, the French game company Momorprods released a new iPhone game called “Ghost Blasters”, which puts you in the role of a ghost buster blaster. Writes Jerome Moreau:
I realize we’ve done nothing truly original so far. We have plenty of ideas for updates tough, but we tried to get a basic version out of the door in time for Halloween. This was really our first try at making an iPhone game and as you’ll see in the credits there’s definitely not too many of us on the team :p
In future updates, we plan to improve the monsters and weapons, etc., but more importantly add geolocation and social network-oriented multiplayer.
The game is free and available here, so why won’t you give it a chance?
While I’m probably not going to be playing Balloon Burst from Popcode obsessively like I do Civ 5 on the PS3, the game is much better than the floating pixel games of six months ago (I’m looking at you Firefighter 360.) Still, I’m looking forward to that innovative AR game that I just can’t put down. Keep at it, Popcode!
Games Alfresco 