An experienced programmer uses mixed reality to turn Rocket League into a tabletop experience.
Developers, both amateur and professional alike, seem to be having an absolute blast creating augmented reality experiences for the Microsoft HoloLens. We’ve seen futuristic renditions of classic childhood games like ‘Hot Lava,’ promotional content for feature films like Smurfs, even a super cool Portal-style experience that turns any location into your own personal Aperture test lab.
Now a software engineer/HoloLens fan has upped the ante even further with an interesting mixed reality experience in the same vein as the massively popular sports game, Rocket League.
Earlier this week YouTuber TheJavierDavalos posted a video online featuring a live demonstration of a small side project he’s been working on for the HoloLens. The video shows Javier navigating a soccer ball around a table-top arena by pushing it with a small car he’s controlling. The entire mixed reality experience looks identical to that of the PC/Xbox One/PS4 title Rocket League, which Mr. Davalos references as his obvious inspiration several times in his video.
The demo, while glitchy and erratic at times, is still a faithful recreation featuring the core aesthetics and controls that made the original title so successful. The tracking demonstrated in the video is also impressive as the arena, as well as the object and player model inside it, remained constantly attached to the real-life surface with only mild indicators of drifting. These features are made all the more impressive due to the fact that Javier created the experience spontaneously one morning as simply a neat little game to show his friends. Dang, I’d love to see what he comes up with when he’s actually trying.
While I don’t expect this HoloLens version to replace the PC or console platforms anytime soon, this unique augmented reality table-top perspective could still potentially open some new doors in term of how one spectates these entertaining matches. Imagine using this technology to casually view live Rocket League games on your coffee table with a group of friends. Professional teams could review past matches in the same room with more viewing angles than ever before, allowing them to more accurately analyze the tactics of upcoming competitors as well as their own performance.
But why stop at Rocket League? This mixed perspective could serve as a viewing option for the audiences of various other spectator video games. League of Legends, CS:GO, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and World of Tanks are just a few examples of traditional video game titles that could greatly benefit from a top-down MR spectator mode. HoloLens could theoretically bring a new level of customization, comfortability and cooperative functionality to future online games. What other games could possibly benefit? Let us know if we missed any!
