EXO: Arena

A new kind of video game

EXO: Arena is augmented reality laser tag. Players meet outdoors, link their phones, and zap each other, navigating real-world obstacles as well as virtual features depicted on their phones.

The inspiration for Arena was Tron, the 1982 film in which a programmer competes in virtual combat games. My co-designer and I had always wanted to do this as kids. As adults, we realized it was possible.

A second motivation was to reverse the trend of sedentary games and isolating screen time. EXO: Arena can't be played indoors, and it can't be played alone. Players get the benefit of moving their bodies and meeting face to face.

Technical highlights of the project include a novel application of Bluetooth for linking players, servers designed specifically for the project, and a hardware-accelerated vector drawing library that generates '80s-style graphics with the framerates of today.

Details

2014 · iOS
Independent Project
App Store

Press

Technologies

  • C++
  • Objective-C
  • Ruby
  • Cocos2D
  • OpenGL

Collaborators