Our inaugural post from early 2008: “Top 10 AR demos that will…” sparked huge interest. Since then, we have witnessed loads of AR games swarming the market.
Well, that may be an exaggeration – but the industry has certainly transitioned from delivering mere demos to actual games; from proof of concepts to commercial products; from “Yay” to “W00t!”
We have covered these AR games before, but Today is your chance to choose.
Vote for your all time favorite augmented reality games!
Our only rules for nomination:
1) It’s a fun game
2) It registers computer graphics on reality
3) It runs on commercial off the shelf hardware.
Here are the 18 nominees in chronological order (when first surfaced on the web):
go!
1. The Invisible Train
2004 – Graz University (PDA, Gizmondo)
2. Catapult
March 2006 – Gizmondo (Gizmondo)
3. Eye of Judgment
May 2006 – Sony (Sony EyeToy)
4. AR Tennis
June 2006 – Fanta/HIT Lab NZ (Nokia)
5. WizQubes
March 2007 – MXR
6. Level Head
October 2007 – Julian Oliver (webcam)
7. ARis
July 2008 – Geisha Entertainment (Webcam)
8. Kweekies
October 2008 – Int13 (Nokia, iPhone)
9. Ghostwire
October 2008 – A Different Game (Nintendo DSi, Nokia)
10. Tower of Defense
December 2008 – Sergey Ten
11. Topps
March 2009 – Total Immersion (Webcam)
12. Scope
March 2009 – Frantz Lasorne (Goggles)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
13. Do the Dip
April 2009 – MacDonald’s (webcam)
14. ARhrrrr!
May 2009 – GA Tech and SCAD-Atlanta (Nvidia Tegra)
15. Candy Wars
May 2009 – GA Tech and SCAD-Atlanta(Gizmondo)
16. Art of Defense
May 2009 –GA Tech (Nokia)
17. RubberDuckzilla
May 2009 – Oasis (webcam)
18. InVizimals
June 2009 – Sony (PSP)
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Which are your favorites?
Share with your friends and find out their favorites! (share button at top right of page)
As the light at the end of the (summer vacation) tunnel is almost insight, let me ask you a reflective question:
Where do kids prefer to be on a summer day:
(a) Museums
(b) Theme parks
(c) Staying at home and playing video games
Any volunteers for (a) ?…
What if you could combine all three into one?
What if you could transform learning about cultures, art, science, history – into a fun experience for kids? What if museums were as much fun as outdoor adventures and video games combined?
This fantasy is becoming a reality thanks to efforts by pioneers around the world.
Here are my picks of the 4 5 best augmented reality tours that are reinventing museums:
1. Lifeplus in Pompei
Pompei Ladies in an afternoon promenade in front of your eyes
Breathing new life into the ruined streets of Pompei
Visitors stroll in the real streets of Pompei, while watching thru their glasses, virtual scenes of city natives living their lives as if it’s 79 AD, minutes before the eruption of Vesuvius.
This EU funded project was lead by MIRALab – university of Geneva in 2004. See more at Lifeplus.
2. DNP-Louvre Museum lab
A behind the scenes look at exhibits
A mobile device with live video, shows on the display virtual objects such as a balloon that guides visitors through the exhibits. The climax of this tour arrives (1:37) when shards of an antique Islamic platter are virtually reconstructed to create the real platter.
Kudos to Metaio who developed the experience for DNP-Louvre Museum Lab in Tokyo, though they should try trimming the bulky device…
3. Mobile Augmented Reality Quest (MARQ) – Expedition Schatzsuche
Treasure hunt in a museum (in Austria)
A team oriented game where museum visitors play the role of investigators required to solve 3d virtual puzzles surrounding exhibits. Successful completion of puzzles reveal further steps of the story.
Beyond the new type of interaction with museum exhibits, MARQ introduces multi user collaboration: collected virtual items can be shared between groups, and “guided tour replays” can be viewed at any time – on the Gizmondo (RIP) gaming device.
This novice approach to experiencing Museum exhibits was developed by the Graz University team in Vienna, led by Daniel Wagner and Dieter Schmalstieg. It was shot at the Kärner Landesmuseum in Klagenfurt/Carinthia.
Rome Reborn is the largest computer simulation of an ancient city. Cool. But what Fraunhofer (Institute for Computer Graphics Research) has done with it is way cool: walk among the ruins of the Roman Forum and point your Vaio UMPC anywhere to see buildings being reconstructed.
Blair MacIntyre and his team at GA Tech have done the impossible: they have turned the Oakland cemetery in Atlanta to a visitor magnet – all thanks to an augmented reality tour which can be experienced on a cell phone. You have to see it to believe it.
Unfortunately, the cemetery was destroyed last year by a hurricane. So the students of subsequent years wont be able to keep playing with it.
6. Science Museum in Paris
Navigate Museums with AirTags
A new implementation by Tonchidot for La Villette Museum in Paris where visitors use AirTags provided by the Museum or by users to enrich their museum experience.
In the creators own words:
Sekai camera turns a museum into a “living” internet environment…The real world becomes “clickable”
7. Digital Binocular Station for Cultural Museums
A stationary Augmented Reality device developed by Mind Space Solutions. Because it is fixed to a single location, it allows the use photorealistic, cinema-quality visuals, and compensate for the lack of parallax by presenting everything in stereoscopic 3D.
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What are the 10 ingredients to augment a museum tour?
A practical augmented reality device (avoid backpacks and bulky displays) with visual tracking software
High quality 3D models of exhibits, and how they looked and behaved in the past (and future?)
A combination of learning and fun with a really really good story
Breath life into inanimate objects
Sprinkle some sound when necessary
Incinerate verbose plaques; say what you have to say in 2 to 5
Indoor tours are great; outdoor tours are even better
Multi user interaction and collaboration
Location based services, including (fun) navigation instructions
Did I mention it has to be fun?
…and don’t forget to send the kids home with a souvenir DVD: “my augmented tour at the museum”
Didn’t make the list…
The following efforts didn’t make the list, mostly because they forgot ingredient #10…
Media Power announced today a donation of $5M to the GVU research center at Georgia Tech – for the advancement of Mobile Augmented Reality (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/news/media-power-donates-5m-to-gvu-center).
It’s intriguing that Media Power’s founder is none other than the controvertial Carl Freer, the executive from Gizmondo – a mobile game device that went belly up “under a cloud” after demostrating huge potential in 2005. Although it made it to the #1 position of “The 10 Worst-Selling Handhelds of All Time” on gamepro it was pretty popular among mobile augmented reality research(Demo).
So now Carl will not only resurrect Gizmondo, but will also establish a new division – Magitech – “centered around the very promising field of Augmented Reality”.
The objective of the joint initiative between Magitech and Georgia Tech is to “envision, prototype and evaluate the next generation of mobile AR games and entertainment applications and positions the company as a leader in AR.”
This initiative looks promising mostly thanks to its ability to attract worldwide top talent in the field of augmented reality (many of them regular contributors to this blog – games alfresco):
Dr. Leonard Kleinrock (Professor, University of California at Los Angeles), Blair McIntyre (Professor, Georgia Tech), Mark Billinghurst (Professor, University of Canterbury), Daniel Wagner (Professor, University of Graz, Vienna), Dr. Michael Gervautz (CEO Imagination, Vienna)
Now, what would you do with $5M and that kind of caliber to advance augmented reality games?
Games Alfresco 