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Wingnut AR introduced its first augmented reality application for Magic Leap One Creator Edition. It was a pretty far-fetched game, as you would expect from the creative minds of Peter Jackson's AR studio in New Zealand. Wingnut AR Pest Control puts you in the shoes of a pest control officer and is told with black humor by a guy with a British accent.
I saw the demo at the release of Magic Leap, L.E.A.P. conference in Los Angeles. Magic Leap certainly has a sense of humor, since he sells his augmented reality glasses at $ 2,295. Apps like the one from Wingnut will not justify such a price for a pure entertainment device, but they are just the beginning of what Magic Leap hopes to be an explosion of creativity around "space computing," which mixes worlds physical and digital.
The Wingnut demo was one of the first that I tried with the Magic Leap glasses with a corrective lens adapted to my vision. I put the computer puck in my pocket and then the headset was threaded, which worked much more easily than any other virtual reality helmet I've worn. It was easier than putting an Oculus Go VR headset. The guys in the demo put a remote in my hand with a few buttons and a trigger. It was easy enough to understand how to navigate.
Unlike virtual reality, you can see the environment around you when you wear the Magic Leap One. And that's one of the points that the application was supposed to demonstrate. I had a clue what was going on when the demo guy asked, "Are you afraid of spiders?
Above: Wingnut AR
Image credit: Wingnut AR
The narrator, speaking through a loudspeaker in the wall, welcomed me for my first day at Wingnut AR Pest Control. Before me was a table with virtual laboratory equipment and a box. I took a stick and I was told to "fix the problem of spiders." Spiders were colorful objects in a cartoon landscape. I had to move a little and crush them. Then I had a baseball bat and I moved more aggressively. That reminded me of other games with stupid British accents, from I Expect You to Die.
As the glasses have only one wire leading to the puck in your pocket, you are free to move. So I did it. I went to the spiders that crawled and I crushed them with the bat. They turned into spider jelly. I hardly noticed that they were climbing on real world furniture, like chairs and tables. The narrator suggested that I upgrade myself and therefore swapped the bat for a sawed-off shotgun. It was not exactly accurate, but it was effective.
The Wingnut demo highlighted one of the major problems with glasses, the limited field of vision. When you search for spiders, you can not use your peripheral vision because you do not have one. You must turn your head to see things at the edge of your vision. So when you search for spiders emerging from walls and corners, you must keep moving forward. I had the impression that if I was swinging the bat in the right direction, it would crush a spider, no matter how far away it was from me. I had a hard time judging the exact distance for an optimal sway, and I had to make sure no human was on the way.
I've finally had a flamethrower to burn spiders and other insects, like cockroaches. But of course, the flamethrower lit a fire, which then overflowed the chemicals on the table. The green acid fell off the table and melted a hole in the ground. We looked down to see that it was a bathroom. Then a giant octopus tentacle emerged from one of the toilets. I had to use a freezing gun to freeze the beast. Then I looked for a weapon. I was advised to use the shotgun. So I blew up the monstrous tentacles and they broke into a million pieces.
Wingnut AR has been working with Magic Leap for about two years and has been working on this application for several months. It also reminded me of Jackson's other Magic Leap collaboration, via his studio Weta Workshop, which released Invaders for Dr. Grordbort's Magic Leap One. It was a fun and stupid demo. And that took away some of the space crusade's gravity, and just showed how you could do a strange thing again in RA.
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