Under the “you might have read it here first” category, I bring you a gaming concept that will be huge in the future, but I wont ever get the credit for bringing it to market. I just hope I can afford it when someone else develops it. Mind you, I thought of this after things like DanceDance revolution and 1st person shooters, but before the wii … apparently they refer to such a concept as “mediated” or “augmented” reality (AR).
Imagine wearable gear and special hardware items that could turn your own home (or anywhere) into a living 3-D adveture. Think Halo, Deus Ex, Duke Nukem, et alia, but in real life.
Before your friends come over, stick a few laser turrets on various shelves, place a few ammo boxes in different rooms, maybe a trip mine in a doorway, and to play nice, a med pack in the bathroom. These would be devices that would respond to the player’s movements and actions. Like laser tag, it would keep score of when they walked in front of a turret, used a med pack, and in like kind those devices would power down if attacked or destroyed (virtually), or could be set to be used up or respawn at set intervals.
But it wouldn’t by any means end there. Amid the myriad combinations of different sets of these devices, a new generation of such things could be integrated into a heads up display on a helmet. Users could even develop their own characters, with stats that would go up with experience and affect their gameplay. Most of all it would be vigorous exercise for the otherwise computer chair bound gamer. Tell me it won’t be cool.