Augmented reality has the potential to bring digital artifices to the real world.  AR gurus constantly speak of geo-location, intuitive search, the Internet of Things and other such high concepts.  Digital natives squeeze efficient behavior out of a chaotic world, using their social media, smartphones and apps.

What if we applied those concepts to our lives through a living breathing game designed to make our civilization more efficient than the others?  Much the same way we are using No Child Left Behind to apply testing to our school systems to make the US more competitive in a global market.  Does testing and measuring and keeping score make people better?  Can an algorithm be applied to every skill?  How does one nurture innovation?

These are all the questions, and more, that I asked myself when thinking about the world of Gamers.   What would our society be like if everything was a game designed to make us better?

Cue the press announcement:

Black MoonBooks is proud to present the first novel in a new YA trilogy from Thomas K. Carpenter called GAMERS:

“Two points for brushing your teeth.  Ten points for keeping your room tidy.  Seventy-two points for the Bioeconomic Game Design pop quiz on the ride to school in your personal FunCar.  Another thirty for making every hurdle in gym class.

Life is a game, unless you’re not the one winning.

When Gabby DeCorte, top student and reality-hacker extraordinaire, learns the truth about LifeGame, she must choose between winning and what she believes in.”

Gamers can be found on eBook for $4.99 at:

Amazon Store

B&N Nook Store

Smashwords

And in mid-June Gamers will be available in paperback for $13.99.

…but not here.

Trying a little something different with some of my augmented reality posts.  Going to just single post some of them over on Games Alfresco, especially the video heavy ones like this.  With a little help from Ori (well, a LOT of help), I put up a listing of many of the current AR games out there.  I’m sure I missed some.  If I have, post ‘em in the comments section over there.

Now this doesn’t mean I’m not going to talk about augmented reality over here on TFDL.  But I’ll keep my general musings on AR to this channel and keep the more specific business and products to Games Alfresco.  I reserve the right to change my mind though.

In my dream world, the Kinect system wouldn’t be tethered to the XBox 360.  Instead, it would hook to the TV and have an extensive app library like the iPhone.

Sweet spot around 1:25 for a ninja vanish move.  The Kinect makes invisibility so easy, it’s mind-boggling.

And better work on your arm endurance.

“It’s better than Angry Birds,” said my nine-year old daughter.

And who am I to argue about that, but given that Angry Birds has dominated our house for the last two months, I was just a little surprised.

Now the first question, one might ask is: “Why are you letting your daughter play Angry Birds all the time instead of doing school work.”  Fine, good question.  But I would answer: “Because she gets her school work done quickly and because it’s actually her iPod Touch that Angry Birds lives on, and if I’m not nice to her, then I don’t get to play.”

See.  A simple answer.

Now the second question would be: “Why would she like Paranormal more than Angry Birds?!  Everyone loves Angry Birds!  It practically comes with any smartphone now.  Is there something wrong with her?”

Well, yes there is.  She’s my daughter, first off, and so that puts her behind the eight ball already.  But the real answer is that she has imagination.

I finally got around to loading up Paranormal on my wife’s iPhone last week.  Yes, I have to be nice to her too, or I don’t get to play with her iPhone either.  Strange how they’ve got me cornered like that.  But I digress.

The game loaded quickly and after finding how to turn the music off (fun for about one minute, then annoying) we started playing it.  The game really comes in three modes: investigations, spells and quests.  Wait.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  First, I should start with what the game is about.

The game involves being a supernatural bad-ass with the ability to destroy ghosts, cast spells, and cleanse the land of evil spirits.  I’m not sure what the official line on the game is since it is a movie tie-in, but that’s what we decided at the ol’ Carpenter house hold.

Through out the game, you gain experience, items, and sanity (it is a fictional game after all) for performing the above listed actions (questing, investigations and spells).  The kids immediately took to the investigations, since you can do it right then and there, spinning around with your “camera” and finding ghosts in the room you’re in.  You get more experience for faster and more accurate captures.

Actions in the game are regulated by mana.  Investigations and spells require mana, which regenerates over time.  You can purchase more mana at the store if necessary.  We didn’t need to.

The second part of the game is casting spells.  The hell holes in your area must be cleansed and kept down through spells.  Utilizing a drawing of a pentagram (very cool I might add, and would make my old elementary Catholic school nuns faint at the thought), the spell can be boosted.  This part of the game is a basic strategy game and involves moving around outside of the home to accomplish.

The last part of the game, the part the kids found to be the most fun (though they enjoyed it all), was the questing.  On the top down map, pins appear showing locations of quests.  Quests must be accomplished at the general area of the pin, so some outside adventuring must occur.  The quests don’t involve much beyond going to the spot, a point that could use some improvement in future games like this, but they did provide story items that helped make the experience spooky.  It also helped, as we were wandering around the neighborhood at 9pm, creeping near a quest point, that an owl hooted scaring the b’jesus out of us.

Overall, I give it two big thumbs up and so do the kids.  Ori Inbar promised the world that he would make games that required our children to get away from screens and adventure into the real world.   That’s the game that his company Ogemento delivered.  While there is some “screen time,” once we got outside, they barely looked at the iPhone and were busy filling in the rest of the game with their imagination.  Another plus is that, while the game uses augmented reality, I never really noticed the technology.  The game was more “experience” rather than “gimmick”.

And though I regularly write for Games Alfresco, which is Ori’s blog; I do not receive any compensation for my articles and most importantly, this article.   The app is free, anyway, so there’s nothing to be gained.  So phhtttt…, if you thought otherwise.

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.

We’re probably at least five years away from something like this, but it sure does look fun.

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!