Bose AR mounts get a narrative look from the team behind That Dragon, Cancer

The most recent game of the team at the origin of That Dragon, Cancer, emotionally evocative and autobiographical, was designed for a pair of sunglasses.

In The Other, players wear Bose AR sunglasses that follow their heads and gestures with built-in speakers, while listening, watching and strolling through a narrative game in a dystopian future. .

"The Other takes place in a fictional authoritarian and dystopian city-state," Numinous Games developers told GamesBeat in an email interview. "A cultural revolution forced people considered" the other "to be gathered together and forced to comply under the threat of death. Vigilant crowds dedicated to this cleansing plow the streets to enforce cultural conformity. As a player, you are an "other" to whom a smuggler has proposed to go out safely. Can you work together to avoid the crowds and escape the city? "

"This audio adventure game is only an allegory of the ideological division of contemporary American society. We think it is important to continually ask ourselves the kinds of questions that shape our identity as a people in this country. We had enormous freedom in this country. Who should we extend these freedoms to? When and how should we risk our own freedom for others when we see the injustice around us? And, finally, can we do better?

The team said they learned from his work on That Dragon, Cancer, that it was more interesting to search for the answers to their questions, to assume that they already knew the answer.

Although the story explores important and timely issues, it is the way players interact with the game that truly distinguishes it.

Loaded on a phone, The Other uses the technology built into the Bose Audio AR sunglasses to sense the direction in which they are looking. He uses this information to track their movements in a simulated city spread over 20 virtual blocks and built using a 3D spatial soundscape. Players never see anything of the game; their phones can stay comfortable in a pocket or bag. Instead, they must use the spatial sound to avoid the dangerous crowds wandering the city following the directions of in-ear navigation and being guided by a mysterious smuggler.

The Other is available on Android, with some problems that the team is still trying to solve. Numinous said the hope was to add more stories to the game.

"It would be great not only to explore the limitations of Bose's technology with incredible audio fidelity, 3D spatialization, head gestures and head tracking with three degrees of freedom, but also to explore more scenarios in a dystopian future. we hope never to arrive. "

The Other is just one of the more than 30 games already released or in development for Bose-powered sunglasses and a special AR-compatible headset, and Bose sees this new-type audio-centric experience as flourishing. of play. Bose experience.

South showcase

The idea of ​​incorporating six high-end miniature speakers and finely tuned into a pair of sunglasses that can also follow the movement of the head was born of Bose's desire to expand his approach to sound.

"We're known for superior sound, but we've been thinking about what we can do to bring value and new experiences to users," said Chuck Freedman, a member of the company's developer relations team. Bose.

In 2018, Bose deployed the Bose AR sunglasses prototype at SXSW to "evaluate" consumer and developer response, Freedman said.

"We wanted to see if these new types of devices – which included a number of sensors to indicate to the application what was the user's direction, which direction they were looking for, which would allow to detect a range of motion – could help developers and creators to provide a little more value, "he said.

"The feedback was extremely positive and we decided to create a platform and offer tools in terms of software development kit and plug-in."

This new type of experience has been dubbed "Audio Augmented Reality" – or Audio AR and Bose have sought to determine the best way to use it. The idea, according to Freedman, was to provide new experiences with a "sound first" approach.

The first devices to use the new technology were two pairs of sunglasses. The frames, as Bose called them, both feature three tiny speakers built into each branch of the sunglasses, as well as a single small button and sensors capable of detecting the movements and orientation of the nobody.

"The returns have been great," he said.

Frames use an open ear concept that allows a person to hear their environment, but also the music they listen to through their glasses. Add to that a sound related to head movements, gestures and location, and the experience is surprisingly powerful.

The first demonstrations paired special navigation apps with frames, allowing users to look at a place, touch the button, and hear something about it.

According to Freedman, this initial response was positive on two counts: users liked the sound quality and sound quality, but they also liked the idea that frames could be used with applications that offered more features.

Perhaps more importantly, Bose told a number of developers and creators that they wanted to create applications for the device.

It is this level of interest that prompted Bose to launch a funding program.

Playcraftin 'jam

As part of the initiative to boost the development of applications and games for Bose AR, the company has also contacted Dan Butchko, who runs Playcrafting in New York. The community-based gaming group began in 2009 and has since grown to host over 100 events and classes across the country, partnering with groups such as Bose, Verizon, the NFL and IBM.

This partnership opened the door to Playcrafting to find developers interested in creating and empowering the platform.

"We have directly connected Bose with developers from all over the country," Butchko said. "We set up this scenario in which we organize jams with members of the community and Bose goes on site to organize a quick workshop."

These traffic jams in turn prompted around 30 other developers from five cities to develop them. When the games become playable, they are then showcased during Bose AR Arcade events in venues such as the PAX East and PAX West fan conventions.

The games being developed come from a wide range of designers – like Numinous Games – and include an eclectic variety of games. In one of these films, "Hide and Bose Seek", an executive searcher discovers hidden players in the real world by following a sound broadcast through the speakers of the sunglasses. When the researcher looks in the direction of a player who is hiding, the sunglasses play music. The closer they get, the stronger the music.

Non-gaming applications also offer captivating experiences and moments of truly surprising moments.

Bose's own "Radar" app includes several audio experiences, including a guided tour of the AR-powered Sunset Strip that only works in Los Angeles and soundscapes that seem to be dropping users in the middle of different locations. In one of them, users hear the sounds of a crowded beach in the summer. The sound of crashing waves mingles with talking people and children playing. Above, a plane passes near. When you look around you, the sounds stay in place. So, if you turn left, the sounds of the ocean – which was in front of you – now sound like it's on your right. Look at the plane and the sounds become louder. Positional 3D audio is not new, but if it's related to head movements and these six open-ear speakers, the experience surprises most people.

"Through our alliance with Playcrafting, we have hired more than 25 teams and 100 game developers, artists and even musicians, innovating with Bose AR," said Freedman. "By meeting with these teams at code jams and events, we have seen incredible games exploring many exciting possibilities with our augmented audio reality platform. The developers took on the challenge of designing and creating a sound gameplay above all else. We expect to see most teams launch their mobile games over the next few months on the Apple App Store and on Google Play. "

This also includes existing applications that add support for Bose AR. For example, "Golfshot" has recently been relaunched with new enhanced Bose AR features on iOS and Android, which allow users to find green through audio signals while wearing Bose frames. Bose also recently partnered with Capitol Records to deploy a new authoring tool to streamline the developing audio experiences for the Bose Radar application.

These types of publications are precisely what Bose was hoping for when they deployed the technology last year.

"Bose AR remains at the heart of our developer relations efforts and has enabled us to attract not only amazing people to our community, but also to our great team," said Freedman. "We are lucky to be able to engage a community of developers and creators interested in augmented reality audio. Independent professionals, teams, brands and innovative companies use Bose AR to enhance their own applications while delivering new experiences to our portable users. "

And it's the game that continues to help show all that is possible with Bose AR.

"In addition to the other applications and fascinating experiences available to our users, we have continued to recognize the game as one of the most available and enjoyable applications of our ecosystem",

Said Freedman.

This dragon, cancer

The power of the human voice, a lesson from That Dragon, Cancer, is what drew the Numinous to Bose AR project.

"Working on a game like That Dragon, Cancer is changing you," they said. "No one in the team could think of video games again. It was then that we discovered the power of the human voice. We understood the interest of raising quiet voices that may not have enough time to talk. And we also saw the value in the sound of the human voice itself.

"Because of this perspective, we have ideas for only audio games and interactive experiences at Numinous for a while. And when Kelly Wallick (founder of the Indie Megabooth) graciously told us about the Bose AR Jam, we jumped on the occasion. The technology that Bose is developing in its new flagship products running at AR really is propelling the audio game experiences to the next level only. Audio-only experiences not only provide a new level of accessibility, but, thanks to the new spatialised 3D audio solutions available today, they also add a new level of immersion and control that can ignite the audience. 39, imagination of the players. "

Now that they have created their first game for Bose AR, Numinous calls incredible technology.

"Having a spatial awareness through sound is a crucial thing for any immersive game and storytelling experience," they said. "The ability to follow three axes of movement of the head of the listeners makes the possibilities of games only audio very exciting.

"This technology is another facet of the immersive computing revolution. The designers of this space are already inventing new haptic interaction languages. We've seen incredible progress in the touch, gesture and visual user interface languages ​​with mobile, VR and AR, but middlewares and gaming platforms are just starting to catch up with the audio language as well. that interface and input. Our experience using voice recognition as input has taught us that there was so much potential there.

"We believe that the future of audio-based audio solutions is promising as long as platforms are willing to work with developers and empower them to innovate."