Perhaps the first step towards real mobile augmented reality games, Google has released five demo mini-games for early adopters of the wearable smart phone. If you happen to be one of those early adopters, you can download the games here. The games available are Tennis, Balance, Clay Shooter, Matcher, and Shape Splitter. They are all really simple in their design, but they show off some of the lesser-known technologies and capabilities of Google Glass and how they could be applied to games.
The five games all seem to use voice or head tracking to play, which makes sense considering there’s obviously no direct controller or anything like that. “Shape Splitter”, however, tracks your hand movement to detect AR shapes that you can slice in half, which is pretty neat. Though clearly these games aren’t meant to be final builds, it shows what could possibly be done and spark third-party developers’ interest in designing apps for Google Glass, in fact Google mentions this in the video.
My only thought is why weren’t games developed sooner? It seems only logical to try some sort of gaming on Glass considering the popularity of some mobile games. I don’t think it’ll set the world on fire, it’s hard to tell considering the limited release of Glass so far. I would imagine considering the control scheme that you would look quite silly playing these games. Then again, if you’re wearing Glass at this point in time, you’re bound to look a little odd anyway.
Last Updated: February 3, 2014
RinceThis2014
February 3, 2014 at 10:37
Stephen, go home, you’re drunk! My only thought is why they weren’t these developed sooner?
Alien Emperor Trevor
February 3, 2014 at 10:49
What are wrong with that sentence?
Stephen Snook
February 3, 2014 at 11:01
fix’d
How embarassing…for Geoff. No but seriously, he does a thankless job.
Unavengedavo
February 3, 2014 at 10:37
Google Glass seem to be heading more and more towards this…
Alien Emperor Trevor
February 3, 2014 at 10:40
I thought the first mini-game was not walking into things while using google glass.
Admiral Chief in Vegas
February 3, 2014 at 10:45
hahahahaha, indeed
Hammersteyn
February 3, 2014 at 10:57
Perfect, something to do while driving…
HvR
February 3, 2014 at 11:16
Imagine the big burly guy behind you in the queue randomly saying:
“Pull bang pull bang pull bang pull bang. Godammit I’m to fuck you up noob”