With augmented reality games being on the rise, it’s no surprise that people are getting creative with ways to make this exciting new technology fun and interactive. With the ability to turn your environment into a real life gaming screen, what other genre would benefit from AR technology than horror games? Well, it’s too bad no one has made a horror AR game….That is, until now.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZQsyr4QX-GU
Source: Youtube, Novum Analytics
I would like to introduce you to a whole new realm of terror: Night Terrors. The game aims to become the most terrifying game ever made, with its highly immersive, photorealistic, binaural, augmented reality survival horror for mobile devices. The game should ideally take place at night, anywhere indoors, with all the lights out, and your headphones on.
What’s cool about this game is the fact that it understands where you are in your environment, and due to AR’s interactive nature, everything in the game revolves around you personally. Not some character you’re playing as. Just you as yourself. In your apartment. Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine.
Source: Indiegogo, Novum Analytics
It also controls what you see, what you here, and where you go. The only light you have is your phone camera’s flash. Your camera and microphone feed is analyzed and affects the game in real time. “Audio is spatialized, mixed with the microphone feed, and then routed to the headphones delivering an immersive binaural audio experience.”
The game has 2 simple objectives: Save the girl, and survive. Everything else, you’ll have to figure out on your own. And instead of using CGI effects to scare you and make you want to scream at 3 in the morning, every AR element is photographed, composted, and rendered to match the lighting in your environment. It really helps create that realistically scary feel.
Source: Indiegogo, Novum Analytics
On the more technical side of things, the team behind the game has built 4 major algorithms that cooperate to make the best augmented reality horror experience. They didn’t quite want to tell us what these algorithms are, but they did say that the gist of it is that they basically created an environmental mapping system that makes the game understand where the walls, floors, and ceiling is, making falling objects, spooky door movements, and ghost placement realistic and believable.
Source: Youtube, vegasbryan
“We’re using a variety of features totally new to augmented reality experiences on mobile devices, including point-source modeling, environment filtering and intensity scanning in order to build a clean map only from walls and light. Gyroscope sensor data is used as a starting point, ceilings and floors are established, giving way to a one-of-a-kind experience for players.” Says the team.
The game’s first crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo wasn’t able to reach their $70,000 goal sadly, but on their second launch on Indiegogo, they were finally able to raise all the money they needed. You can get the game on the apple store now, and versions for Android and windows phone are on their way.
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