DefconAR

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: February 23rd, 2009

I just recently rediscovered Offworld, Brandon (the Brandon people are talking about when they say I look different in my press photo) Boyer’s excellent, excellent indie/weird gaming blog. I shall be diligently mining it for TIGS content from now on.

This video is of DefconAR, a super-cool Augmented Reality prototype from Introversion. Quoth programmer Leander Hambley’s forum post:

DefconAR was originally just gonna be a cool little toy for us to use in the office to wow people who came to see us. Who’d have to hide the Defcon screen from your boss when playing Office mode, if there isn’t even a window open for it? Have a small tile on your desk, wearing some AR goggles, and no one would know. Obviously there isn’t much to it at the moment, I still need to spice up the world rendering, and then add in some actual content, but just imagine how this would look with nukes flying over the globe in realistic arcs, and maybe even 3D mushroom clouds.

Yes, please, this is awesome. You know, if it were feasible, this sort of thing could make for a great Gamma(GammAR?)

  • Novichock

    IIRC there’s a Japanese company which is working on a AR H-toy.

  • http://www.b-mcc.com BMcC

    Ha, it was only a matter of time!

  • Jad

    AR is SO the future. Holy shit I can imagine myself having such a ball with a layer of virtual shenanigans on top of my reality :D

    also different kinds of communication via AR messages and god knows what. Also this looks fantastic, heh!

  • Sergio

    I’m pretty sure that AR-H-toy has already been released. Maybe a year ago. Was it some sort of cube/webcam setup?

  • PHeMoX

    Awesome, I’d like to play that defconAR version for sure. I hope they make a full game out of it, it has innovation written all over.

  • http://www.spookysquid.com Miguel

    Sweet! Hiro? I wonder if that’s a little reference to the 3D globe in Snowcrash.

  • Lyx

    that, plus some interesting tricks for input-interfacing would open up an entirely new way of gaming. Especially multiplayer in the same room around a table for example.

  • http://www.roachpuppy.com IceNine

    That stood out to me too Miguel haha.

  • Vegetable

    BlackMagic, anyone?
    http://www.hitlabnz.org/wiki/BlackMagic_Book

    It’s been at least three years since this program was made available, so I’m surprised it took someone this long to finally put it to good use. Kudos to the author!

  • Vegetable

    Oh, and for those who can’t be bothered downloading it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfFLnsVpZUg

  • rz.

    i’m so lost. what exactly IS this?!

  • http://www.b-mcc.com/ BMcC
  • http://www.adamatomic.com/ Adam Atomic

    that’s so pringles

  • http://www.b-mcc.com/ BMcC

    A spin-off of _That’s So Raven_ about a kid who plays Marvel vs. Capcom all day.

  • Anthony Flack

    I’d rather see it done with a spherical touch-screen LCD panel…

  • Lord Tim

    Hello World?