Posts Tagged Lemmings
10 Games That Could Be Made with Layar 3.0
Posted by Tom Carpenter in Steal This AR Idea!, augmented reality on December 4, 2009
The new Layar 3.0release brings more functionality to the reality browser. To help people envision what the service can do, Layar touts five new use-cases:
Five Layar 3.0 Use-Cases
1) Architecture Showcase – Visualize the final building at a construction site.
2) Storytelling: Beatles Tour – A visual tour of forty-three locations in London involving the Beatles. Each stop must be followed in order.
3) History Comes Alive – See the past reconstructed before your eyes with facts and 3D models.
4) Art, Messages & Fun Objects – Weird objects placed in unexpected places.
5) B2B & Personalization – Useful for businesses and social layers, enabling interaction with Twitter (take that Twitter 360!) and Foursquare services.
While these five use-cases expand the Layar reality browser (and more info on them can be seen here), I think they’re missing a huge use-case that’s now possible with 3.0. After reading through the Layar Developer Wiki, I found these functions that should help make Layar games possible.
Two Layar 3.0 Functions
* User added 3D objects – 3D objects up to 5000 polygons can be created with any 3D program (assuming it can create a Wavefront)
* Auto-Triggered Actions – POIs can trigger a URI (audio, video, webpage, etc) which can allow for additional programming aspects to happen. By utilizing functions within a webpage, most programming tools can be utilized within the Layar framework.
These two simple functions can add a lot of versatility to the program to make games. And while the 3D graphics are still pretty limited and animations aren’t yet possible, think back to the dawn of gaming when text based games like ZORK were all the rage, or simple 2D lines and text created time-sinks like Wizardry. Even simple sprites doomed many a night I should have been studying with Lemmings! The key to these games is that they should be locative, otherwise, what’s the point?
10 Games That Could Be Made with Layar 3.0
1) Capture the Flag – Instead of capturing flags on your opponent, hide flags in the city and capture your friends flags by visiting their locations.
2) Choose Your Own Adventure – Who didn’t read these cheesy books in grade school? Be a fun way to host a weekly bar-hop.
3) Simple RPG- a city based RPG that used locations as the “action areas.” Any math or combat resolving could be done through a URI webpage call and then reveal the 3D model (win=dead creature/lose=gravestone). Go into Joe’s Pub and kill a goblin for 5xp and then drink a pint to celebrate your victory.
4) Hidden Treasure- Clues and visual markers only seen through Layar can lead you to finding “special points” in the city.
5) Avatar Battles- Customize an avatar that does battle with others for control of locations. Think Foursquare crossed with Pokemon.
6) Economy Game – Buy and Sell real properties with virtual money. Must visit the location to purchase, can develop it with special actions (putting special 3D models in the area) and mark it with your sign.
7) Mystery Games- In a randomized Clue-style game, participants are given clues in different locations they visit and can ask questions using the URI webpage (pull down list) to figure out the daily murder.
8 ) The Hidden Story – A mosaic story could be told through the location in the city. For those that visit all of them, they can piece together the whole narrative that involves history, places and interesting people while the occasional 3D object might illustrate the narrative.
9) Planet War- Mine resources at locations, purchase tanks and other warfare equipment that can be places in areas you want to control. The website resolve winners and you see your battle regalia in the location. Take over your favorite eating establishment with a load of Panzers.
10) Lemmings!- I don’t really know how to do Lemmings! with Layar 3.0, but I’m sure someone much more creative than I can do it. It is the greatest game of all time, right?
Popularity: 42% [?]
10 Franchises That Need Augmented Reality
Posted by Tom Carpenter in AR Games, Steal This AR Idea!, augmented reality on August 10, 2009
Augmented reality is gaining buzz, tickling imaginations and will eventually enter the mainstream zeitgeist. Eventually, many companies will wonder if they should take advantage of this new technology.
Some should jump in with both feet and some should stay on the sidelines.
I would like to present 10 franchises from the previous decades that could use augmented reality to reinvigorate their brand with an AR game:
1 – TRON
Tron has a new movie coming out in 2010 so its sure to get a huge boost from that, but I’d like to see an AR console game following the movie. Let us control mini-lightbikes in our living room, or play the Tron-pong game against other opponents with the “disc” being an AR marker and controller all-in-one.
2 – Smurfs
Smurfs? Yeah, really, smurfs. If you’re not familiar with this 80′s cartoon, then you won’t get it. But smurfs in your living room battling Gargamel and Azrael amongst the toadstools in a RTS game would be an absolute blast. Plus, when you win a smurf vs. smurf RTS match, you get to tell your opponent, “I smurfed you real good.”
3 – The Ultima Series
The Ultima series is one of the more storied RPGs in video game history. Lord British aka Richard Garrette created a franchise that kept people up at night exploring his vast worlds. One advantage that console AR could have is bringing the action into your living room. I’d love to see a landscape drawn onto my living room floor that lived and breathed with the stories of Ultima. Controlling my avatar and fighting miniature battles would give me and millions of other nostalgic gamers joy.
4 – Lemmings
Lemmings = crack. Enough said. Watching these little head bobbing mammals cavort through your living room to their potential deaths, while trying save them from themselves equals pure gaming gold. Lemmings were the original tower defense game.
5 – Minesweeper
Getting blown up on your living room floor can be entertaining right?
6 – Scorched Earth
The game, while simple, was played heavily by my friends and I in college. I remember it as an early, and great, shareware game that had wide appeal. Using my living room as the play field, I’d love to sit on opposite couches and blow someone up (or play a computer).
7 – Risk
Imaging playing the board game, but when you make moves on the board, it relays them as battle scenes on the TV. Cameras can easily track both the dice and the chits that represent your armies. Generals could stand behind you and offer suggestions or mock you for your infantile tactics.
8 – Jenga
Who needs real blocks when you could play Jenga with all sorts of crazy items: lolcats, buses, rubix cubes, giant dice, meat sticks or Hulk Hogan lunch boxes.
9 – Pictionary
Pictionary is a game from the 1980′s involving making drawings and having your teammates guess what they represent. The game could use a huge upgrade with augmented reality. Having 3D objects to interact with and drawings that come alive could make the game a smash success.
10 – The Price Is Right!
Since 3D objects can be brought into your living room, why not bring in the wacky and wierd games of the Price is Right! like Plinko or the big number wheel. Part of the fun of the game show is the tackiness, so why not be able to play at home.
And as a bonus, because I’m a huge fan of AOTS, I’m throwing in this video “The Girl at the Video Game Store” by Parry Gripp with Kevin Pereira and Oliva Munn. Its here for two reasons: one, I’d like to see some AR games on AOTS, and two, I’d like to see some AR games on AOTS.
Popularity: 29% [?]
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