Augmented Reality May be the Future of Gaming and Child Creativity

First Posted: Nov 09, 2015 11:33 AM EST

Augmented reality may just be the future of gaming and interactive exploration. Scientists at Disney Research have stated that augmented reality with mobile devices serves as the perfect bridge between real-world games and video games.

"Exploring the world and new activities is what childhood is all about," said Markus Gross, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our research brings the seamless fusion of the real and virtual world together with an intelligent and creative gameplay. We believe that these concepts offer exciting virtual enhancement over real-world interactions."

The Disney researchers have actually been able to use mobile devices to direct renewed emphasis on traditional activities of creative play. For example, one app, based on coloring, allows children to customize 3D animated characters simply by coloring them as they normally would in a coloring book.

For a prototype multiplayer game, players each use a mobile tablet to track a virtual object as they move around and talk with each other to cooperatively frustrate an invading alien force. The researchers also developed a city-wide gaming framework, enabling the development of games such as scavenger hunts, which get players outdoors.

Augmented Creativity isn't just about play, though. The researchers created a framework to help users also write interactive narratives.

"Augmented reality can help children develop a deeper understanding of programming by making the dynamics of program execution visible," said Robert Sumner, one of the researchers. "And it opens up new opportunities in gaming, by making it possible to create new classes of games that include user-programmed characters."

For more information about the project, visit Disney's website.