Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Urban Defender Conquers City


What have you done in the past 12 days?  Well this group in Zurich at the Zurich University of Arts, Departement of Interaction Design, created the Urban Defender as part of the Embodied Interaction Advanced HS 2009 in just 12 days.  The team members (Karmen Franinovic, Max Rheiner, Dondup Shelkar, Philipp Läubli, & Nino Cometti) lay out in great detail how they conceptualized the game, interaction, and physical components.  The goal of the game is simple: "try to conquer as many quarters as possible, reinforce these quarters and defend them against other players."

In the concept video (below), I like how the computer interface changes as the players race around the playing area and tag their zones.  It's quite possibly one of the first physically interactive, ubiquitous computing, applications  I've seen.  We have seen many mobile-based ubiquitous computing applications, but most of those have been location based and location recognition.  Using a ball to interact with the physical environment in a public space is pure brilliance.  In some ways it reminds me of the Japanese group that created Shoot-ball (anyone remember that?)  I would love to try this one out on our campus or in town.  Anyone up for a little UD?




And here is the rest of it.

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