levelHead: A 3D Spatial Memory Game

Demo video of new conceptual game 'levelHead' by Julian Oliver.

This is an actual game-prototype using techniques and tools from a well-known branch of computer vision called Augmented Reality.

Using tilt motions, the player moves a character through rooms that appear inside one of several cubes on a table. Each room is logically connected by a series of doors, though some doors lead nowhere (they are traps).

The player has 2 minutes to find the exit of each cube, leading the character into the entrance of the next..

Work is also being done to use invisible markers such that the cube itself appears entirely white to the naked eye.

Project page: http://julianoliver.com/levelhead

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• 3d
• game
• interface
• augmented
• tangible

[LinkThatLove]

this is stupid why would there be a overlay thing on trhe cube to make an image somewhere else? wouldnt it defeat the purpose? and the cubwe would be useless if its blank. use some axis, accelerometers and 6 screens and itll be awesome

[delire2080]

see the project page for a technical description of why what you suggest wouldn't work. also see reviews on that page by game reviewers that have played levelHead: they give some insight into how it works.

[Chloesaysmeow]

Umm.. Looks amazingly cool- but I am already confused! There is not much chance that I have the intelligence (nor the patience!) to play an Escher-esque game like this for long! :( But I would still buy one because it is visually & technologically cool as sh*t!

[purelife112]

Cool! Nice game.

[MAXumYMakarOFF]

Does anyone have a printing of these symbols so I could make my own cubes?

[natetrontx]

Who is the music by? Love it. What a far out concept for a game! Astounding.

[nicknormal]

@LinkThatLove lame comment, use your imagination.

[tumbirs]

Nice display of locational memory when the angle is changed.

Kinda remind me of those MGS games. lol

Thanks for uploading.

[odv000]

simple realisation and so cool result !!!

brilliant idea !!!

[MrGeekPhantom]

Aug reality is one of the newest innovations in the electronics industry and.... ...AR is amazing!

[delire2080]

In fact it is not as possible as you think.

Whether using mini projector or LCD screen, each side of the cube would require a camera to calculate the viewing angle of the player's face. Without this there'd be no sense of depth: Each room would appear 'flat' relative to the viewer. Inside the 5x5x5cm cube there'd need to be a small computer to pass the relative angular pose back to the computer to which the projector is attached.

It'd be awkward and expensive. AR is simpler and more robust.

[hazonku]

WTF are you talking about? Are you trying to explain that you watch the game on the PC & not the actual cube? Oh & MIT just fixed that too btw. You actually could watch it on the cube itself using a mini projector & maybe little colored dots in the cubes corners to for angle tracking.

[hazonku]

looks fun. It's like an AR version of Echochrome. The difficulty would only be limited by the imagination too. You could just keep expanding your number of cubes and markers making the game ongoing. I see why "invisible" markers would be a plus though. Otherwise you could cheat by recreating the markers on paper taking the whole spacial thinking out of the game. the rotation of a cube is the hard part.