Monday, January 30, 2017

Tango - Elephant In The Room

Project Status: App Idea

Requirements

This app would require a Google Tango device to run. If you are looking to buy a Tango device check out this post which links to the newest devices on the market.


The Purpose

I'm thinking about building a Google Tango app about an elephant in the room. Sort of a little game, which will be more about me learning how to write a Tango app than it will be about making a fun app/game.

The Idea

Basically you would open the app and look around your room. After a quick look at your environment the game may begin. What will happen is an elephant will be hidden in your room. Your job will be to hunt around and find it, touching on it once found.

Sort of a Where's Waldo type of search, except for an elephant and in real life (augmented life?).

I think it would start out super simple to find, like a gigantic obvious one with some very visible texture. Once you touch it, it will hide again, but the difficulty factor will change based on how well you are doing. Over time it can get smaller and hide better, better even so once it learns the mapping of your environment. The textures can blend better with the room to make it even harder to spot.

Bells and Whistles

If I could get it working, I would have the elephant be a playful character to interact with. It would act like a big puppy.

If someone is looking around too fast and the Tango sensors can't keep up, I would alert the user to slowdown, telling them they are scaring off the elephant by moving so fast. In this way finding creative solutions to handle the current limitations of Tango.

Update

I took a little time and started to work on this project. So far I have been able to place the elephant in the room. The cats are from the tutorial I used to get the app running, lol. Enjoy.