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Projecting Serious Games Onto the Real World

Inspired by The Power of Play - Serious Games in Canada and How Stuff Works

Leveraging on Richard Hart today's posting, where he explores the possibility of taking serious games into the real world and encouraging interaction and exploration within it.

Augmented-reality displays will overlay computer-generated graphics onto the real world

Augmented reality engages people in simulation games that combine real world experiences with additional information.




Early prototype of a mobile augmented-reality system

Augmented reality is still in an early stage of research and development at various universities and high-tech companies. What augmented reality attempts to do is not only superimpose graphics over a real environment in real-time, but also change those graphics to accommodate a user's head- and eye- movements, so that the graphics always fit the perspective. Here are the three components needed to make an augmented-reality system work:

head-mounted display
tracking system
mobile computing power

The goal of augmented-reality developers is to incorporate these three components into one unit, housed in a belt-worn device that wirelessly relays information to a display that resembles an ordinary pair of eyeglasses.

Using Augmented Reality 

Medical Training Through Visualization

Allows a physician to see directly inside a patient, using augmented reality (AR).


In an Augmented Reality interface students can be seated around a table and see each other at the same time as a virtual heart floating in their midst. This results in conversational behavior that is more similar to natural face-to-face collaboration than to screen based collaboration [Kiyokawa 2002].

Military Simulation

The military has been devising uses for augmented reality for decades. In fact, the Office of Naval Research has sponsored some augmented-reality research. The idea here is that an augmented-reality system could provide troops with vital information about their surroundings, such as showing where entrances are on the opposite end of a building, somewhat like X-ray vision. Augmented reality displays could also highlight troop movements, and give soldiers the ability to move to where the enemy can't see them.

Instant information


This is the first augmented reality game to be made for cell phones. KickReal is a game that lets the cell phone users point the camera of their phone to their feet and take penalty shots.