Given the spokesman and the nature of the video, I actually thought this was a comic piece and I was prepared to write another article about how augmented reality was entering the zeitgeist. It turns out the AR app is a very serious one.
No further comment except to say how interesting it is to see the intersection of personal information, societal issues and technology. See the official website for more information.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: augmented reality | 5 Comments »
“They have returned”
I’m a sucker for a good tag line. Gary Hayes from MUVEdesign has put out a teaser video for his upcoming, well 2011 release date, game called Time Treasure. Gary explains more on his blog, but I wanted to add my comments.
Gary says:
Without giving the plot away, the structure of this game is quite straightforward. There are ten layers of time from 2050 back to 5000BC that you slowly penetrate following stories, clues and trails all based at POIs (points of interest, precise locations) around your city. The traditional MMOG talking-head quest and story givers are a unique part of this as well as a range of capture & loot quests that require you in some cases to do a little ‘real world’ grinding… ok not too much
For me the challenge as always is about creating strong ‘call to actions’ and constructing a narrative backbone to make it worth your while walking and in some cases running around town! I will do a post when this reaches a full working pilot.
I think this is a terrific idea and I find it interesting he’s planning this on a tablet rather than a smartphone. I’m in agreement that the more immersive games are going to require a bigger screen to make work. On the other hand, I’m not sure how much people will want to hold their tablet up all day, but its worth a shot. Personally, I’m amazed at how much people are willing to hold their cellphones to their ear with their necks bent while they drive down the road. If people want to do it, they’re willing to suffer a little pain.
I also like his questing idea and creating a narrative. Though I’ve been around gaming long enough to know that every developer wants to create narrative but it’s much harder when you get around to coding.
The other challenge point for Gary and MUVEDesign is making the game work across multiple cities. I suppose you can come up with a general plot that can be dropped into any city, just change the GPS codes, but it’d be nice to get some personal touches from each city’s history.
Overall, I think its a good idea and I hope we see it come to fruition. Good luck, Gary.
More about Time Treasure:
A Location Based Augmented Reality Game in development for Android Tablets, planned release 2011 © MUVEDesign.com 2009
Game, film & music created by GaryPHayes. Some placeholder animations World of Warcraft © Blizzard Entertainment. Tablet featured is the Samsung Galaxy
“Travel back through layers of time
across your city”“Discover stories and clues from
those who are no longer hidden”“Find and capture treasure
thought lost for over 8000 years”“In your city, control time and place
follow the guardians and guides”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: AR Games, augmented reality, Gary Hayes, location gaming, MUVEDesign | 4 Comments »
The fine folks at AR Door sent me a link to this ISMAR10 video that they assembled from their experience. Watching it really makes me wish I’d been able to attend. Some of the people and AR examples I recognized, but a few that I didn’t know, piqued my interested. I’d love to hear more about the virtual couch.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: AR Door, augmented reality, ISMAR10 | Leave a comment »
Not the snazziest of article titles but I couldn’t think of anything catchier. That point brings me to the addendum topic of this blog post, which is the unsexy nature of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes in the AR movement. But first, let’s see what’s going on in the scene.
W. Lee, Y. Park, V. Lepetit and W.Woo, showed off their paper “Point-and-Shoot for Ubiquitous Tagging on Mobile Phones,” at ISMAR10. These two nifty videos show off some crazy-good in situ markerless detection, including an x-wing fighter, complete with shadows, flying over a parking lot. Cue the movies:
The addendum point I wish to make today is that how much we forget all this amazing technology has been built on the backs of some amazing researchers. Back over a year and a half ago, most of the content online was from researchers. Now-a-days, we’re usually only showing the commercial videos which tend to be better constructed.
However, there’s something truly awesome about the unvarnished videos from pre-hype days like the ones here. You can almost feel the excitement when they got the project working and rushed to the camera to record their efforts and upload it to YouTube–more Wright Brothers than Donald Trump.
So if you’re a researcher and I’ve missed your AR research video, please send me a note, along with some background information on the project and I’ll be happy to highlight you here on Games Alfresco.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: AR Games, augmented reality, iphone, ISMAR10, mobile phones | 3 Comments »
First, and foremost, I owe an apology to Total Immersion which I criticized for having an invitation only event (AR-Immersion). They have kindly reminded me that their event is free of charge, unlike other similar events. Anyway, you can ask for an invitation here.
Now that this is behind us, here are other things that happened in the AR-sphere:
This week’s video proves that augmented reality can be annoying at times, like a virtual fly you can shake off. Created by Michele Cirulli, this was apparently a video installation at the Live Performers Meeting this year.
Have an excellent week!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: linkfest, Mobilizy, total immersion, Wikitude | 1 Comment »
It’s a good sign that a comedian can do jokes about augmented reality and still be funny, including the minor tech fail. Still, we’re a long way from Conan whipping out the funny, but I’m encouraged. What’s next? A Thursday night sitcom based on AR?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: augmented reality, Comedy | 1 Comment »
ISMAR 2010 is just a couple of days away, and in the meantime, here’s this week’s linkfest:
Today’s video is coming to us straight from ISMAR 2010. It’s a presentation of the results achieved in the paper “Build Your World and Play In It: Interacting with Surface Particles on Complex Objects” by Brett Jones and other researchers from the University of Illinois. The paper presents a way to map virtual content on 3d physical constructions and “play” with them. For more details check out Jones’ website. I think that Angry Birds would be prefect on such a platform:
Have a great week, and the lucky of you who get to be in ISMAR, take some videos, please!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Google, Google Goggles, Layar, linkfest, Microsoft, Microsoft Lightspace, total immersion | 2 Comments »
In the future, everything will be interactive: walls, toilets, hammers, cars, small dogs…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: augmented reality, YDREAMS | Leave a comment »
I’m a firm believer that the first commercially available head up devices will be sold to joggers and bicyclists.
Imagine going on an augmented run, where instead of just listening to music or podcast, you do that, and play a computer game for the extra motivation. Every now and then you’ll have to pick a virtual coin, or avoid some virtual danger. Think of Sonic the Hedgehog, where you are Sonic. Or you may run against a virtual competitor, which may very well be non other than yourself, as recorded on a previous run. At the very least you’ll be able to constantly see you heart rate and the number of miles you’ve already completed.
Now meet AR Walker from Olympus. It’s a simple HUD (and not available commercially), but it’s a good start. Once AR takes hold among amateur sportsmen, it will have a real chance in entering our daily lives.
CrunchGear has some more details about it.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: AR Walker, head up display, Olympus | 2 Comments »
Games Alfresco 