Click here to view the embedded video.

Some folks would say this is not “really” AR, since the graphics (ghosts) are not tightly, accurately, spatially registered with the world.  Normally, I would agree;  as is obviously from my work and other posts, I think it is important to distinguish between different kinds of systems that relate the physical and virtual worlds, because different approaches have different affordances and capabilities.  I tend to call “AR” things that tightly register graphics with the physical world, because it creates experiences that afford certain things (e.g., allows people to leverage their spatial and perceptual abilities to remember where virtual things are, refer to them, perform actions in relation to them, collaborate, and so on). Conversely, I usually refer to experiences like this, that crudely position graphics in a space, as mixed reality (MR).

However, the ghost theme is the one theme that is amenable to “faking AR” on low end devices.  Over the years, we’ve done a lot of ghost-themed experiences, first on Auburn Avenue (an historic area in Atlanta) and later at the nearby Oakland Cemetery (where we had students do class projects for years in our Augmented and Mixed Reality Experience Design class).   One of the reasons ghosts “work” is that we all “know” how ghosts “behave”, and one of these behaviors is that they don’t stick to the real world, they float and shift and even appear to go through objects or walls.  Which is exactly what happens when the graphics aren’t registered.

So, the upside is, I’ll look forward to this game coming out, and like to see how it works.  There are lots of questions that remain to be answered before one can say if this will be good or not, but the idea is interesting and promising.