Wonderland

Fragments: a game for Hololens where your living space is the crime scene

A pal told me about this yesterday, and it looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. 

In Fragments, your AR headset will first map your play space - likely your living room. Then the game overlays the play onto your real stuff: game characters sit on your furniture, and game events take place right in front of you.

"We're able to put a thumbprint on a matchbook that we hide behind your coffee table, so that you actually have to physically get up and find that pivotal clue..."

 

I'm not fond of the avatars (as they are here) or the clunky avatar-delivery of the storytelling, but you can see where this can go, of course. Amazing stuff.

(Thanks, Jamie!)

Losswords - a mobile game where you play with real clever book extracts

Here's how to get smarter, quicker: (back and) play Losswords.

It's made by game industry legends Eric Zimmerman (<-- Diner Dash!) & Colleen Macklin and John S. As a player, you get to make & break codes created from public domain classic literature...

In the future world of Losswords, books have been banned and video games are the only form of state-approved culture. You are a member of secret literary underground called The Readers. To keep books alive and out of sight from the oppressive government regime, you scramble and unscramble passages from famous works of literature...

It's not out yet - the Kickstarter is successfully backed, but the stretch goals include Android versions and moar books - so I can't tell how fiendishly hard (or not?) it is. Also whether it requires either an epic literary knowledge to win... or just really excellent googling/in-OCR search skills. 

Either way, I'm betting on myself to pwn the Alice in Wonderland challenge, given that I've been given about 23 copies of it over my birthdaylifetime. <3

Congrats, Eric, Colleen & John!