Category: galaga

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AR Take On Galaga Will be Heading to iOS

Galaga is a beloved arcade classic dating back to the early days of videogames. It has become beloved by fans since it was first released for arcades by Namco back in 1981, since then the title has seen appearances as the loading screen for Ridge Racer, and even getting a cameo in The Avengers movie. Now the arcade classic is making a leap into augmented reality (AR) thanks to Directive Games.

The founder and CEO of Directive Games, Atli Mar appeared on stage at Apple’s Special Event in California to demonstrate the new technology which allowed the AR arcade to go multiplayer.

The AR Galaga was designed to show off the capabilities of the new A12 Bionic chip, which is the new GPU being installed in the new iPhones, as well as ARKit 2, the upgraded and enhanced version of Apple’s AR toolset.

Mar and others from the Directive Games team took to the stage to show off an AR arcade machine, which displayed a game of Galaga as the Directive Games team took each other one, battling to hit the high score. While it initially appeared that Galaga would be confined to the virtual arcade machine, as the demo continued Galaga expanded out from the arcade machine to open up the game to others on the stage.

The other players were then faced with alien spacecraft whizzing around in front of them, their iPhones acting in lieu of the spaceship that players usually control in classic Galaga. It was even possible to activate power-ups which triggered impressive visual effects, like the stun, which created a glittery web of energy, holding all the alien craft in place

The demonstration didn’t just demonstrate the visual capabilities and responsiveness of the new iPhone but also showed how persistent, multiplayer AR was possible using the ARKit 2 toolset.

For future coverage on ARKit and other Apple AR projects, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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‘Super Kaiju’ Studio Unveils ‘Galaga AR’ Multiplayer Game, ‘AR Arcade’ Series Coming in 2019

Apple’s ‘Gather Round’ product event took place today, and while the company is predictably heavy on the new hardware iterations, including Apple Watch Series 4, the A12 Bionic chip, and new iPhone X versions, the company is still plugging its AR capabilities with two featured ARKit 2.0 apps. Taking the stage was NEX Team, which showed off an updated version of their HomeCourt basketball app, and Directive Games, which debuted Galaga AR, an upcoming augmented reality multiplayer version of the classic arcade game.

Directive Games is a Shanghai-based AR/VR studio behind Super Kaiju (2018) for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and The Machines, a PvP multiplayer AR game announced during the Apple iPhone X event last year.

Atli Mar, CEO of Directive Games, took the stage at the Steve Jobs Theatre to show off Galaga AR in a live demonstration. Built with ARKit 2.0, which puts multiplayer AR at its core, Galaga AR lets at least three other people play in what looks like an absolute sensory explosion of lights and action.

Image courtesy Apple

Busting out of a classic arcade cabinet placed on a table, players duke it out for max points by shooting down laser drones and even going against a level boss. While it seems a bit busy visually, it’s one of the highest quality multiplayer AR experiences we’ve seen to date—no small part played by Apple’s new A12 Bionic chipset.

Image courtesy Apple

Directive Games’ Atli Mar further announced that more classic arcade games would be getting the AR treatment in the future, although he made no specific mention of which games are yet to come.

The so-called ‘AR Arcade Series’ is slated to hit the App Store later this year, although no specific dates have been announced at this time. At the time of this writing, it’s unclear exactly which AR-capable iOS devices will see support.

The post ‘Super Kaiju’ Studio Unveils ‘Galaga AR’ Multiplayer Game, ‘AR Arcade’ Series Coming in 2019 appeared first on Road to VR.