Already blogged everywhere VisAVis games is a good way to move forward from the actual video game paradigm to new interfaces. It's carried out by Julian Bleecker and game designer Peter Brinson.
Vis-a-Vis represents a research vector along an old familiar trajectory of location-based designs, but adding a relatively new (for me) element of gaming. We've cobbled together a mobile gaming framework composed of light-weight, outdoor viewable TabletPCs, the Torque available source game engine, a global positioning system (GPS), a mil-spec 3D sensor that's able to very quickly and accurately measure where one points the TabletPC, turning the whole rig into a kind of "magic window" into the game world. While the technical framework might be considered unique, maybe even clever, it's really the games that have us hopped up. We're working through an exciting list of game concepts that are off the hook when it comes to what one may traditionally think of as an electronic game. We're hitting the canon of "traditional" outdoor kids games, making them fun, engaging, and hopefully a great reason to get outside and break a sweat. Vis-a-Vis Games takes ordinary electronic gaming off your old fashioned video game console and desktop PC and moves it out into the real world. This is the future of electronic gaming - pervasive, ubiquitous, in-the-world experiences. Imagine the heart-pumping action of your favorite FPS - in the real world! Or an old favorite playground game like Dodgeball, networked with other players both nearby and far away, where you actually have to move to dodge the ball! Or a role-playing game where you have to travel across town or across the country!) to pursue your characters goals!
Why do i blog this? I like the project very much. The 'VisAVis' framework is very appealing to me, it reminds me the "Behind the mirror" novel by Lewis Caroll with this idea of a "magic window". I envision lots of interesting scenarios both for pleasure/fun and educational purposes (even though it does not seem to be the focus of the project, it made me think about potential scenarios for children).
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