Trippy, Interactive Game From Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’ Could Become Reality
When it isn’t exploring the elusive relationships between technology and human intimacy, Spike Jonze‘s masterful 2013 film, Her, also teases the future of video games. A number of hilarious and trippy scenes find protagonist Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) playing an interactive game that transforms his entire living room wall into a massive touch-screen – and now, as The Wrap reports, this seemingly futuristic brand of gameplay is close to becoming a reality, thanks to Microsoft Research’s RoomAlive project.
The above video demonstrates the technology, which uses Xbox Kinect sensors and projectors to turn a room into an interactive environment that responds to gamer touch and commands. “Users can touch, shoot, stomp, dodge and steer projected content that seamlessly co-exists with their existing physical environment,” Microsoft noted in a statement. “The basic building blocks of RoomAlive are projector-depth camera units, which can be combined through a scalable, distributed framework. The projector-depth camera units are individually auto-calibrating, self-localizing, and create a unified model of the room with no user intervention.”
Ten researchers collaborated to work on the prototype, which is still in its developmental infancy. But if the three-minute demo is any indication, it’s going to blow the minds of gamers worldwide when the technology is harnessed into a commercial product. The clip features four different interactive environments – including an indoor factory and a river – along with multiple gaming scenarios, including a carnival-like “Whack-A-Mole” (featuring a gun control that can take aim at critters wandering the walls) a “Robot Attack” and “Darts,” in which gamers must avoid simulated projectiles.
The future of nerddom is now.