'Clandestine: Anomaly' to make AR gaming an everyday thing
A July 7 release date now beckons for ambitious iOS game 'Clandestine Anomaly,' the augmented reality title with hopes of advancing the AR genre as a whole.
Smartphone games have found great success in adapting their design to the unique nature of mobile.
If virtual gamepads are possible using on-screen buttons, they lack the tactile feedback of the console or arcade cousins they seek to emulate.
Far more intuitive is the use of tap and swipe controls, uniform across smart mobile devices. "Fruit Ninja," "Doodle Jump," "Angry Birds" have all leveraged simple single-digit actions to great effect.
But augmented reality games attempt to go much further than mere touchscreen accommodation.
The Nintendo 3DS's built-in "Face Raiders" app uses its onboard cameras and gyroscope to show a player's surrounds populated with flying faces that have to be taken down -- similar to "AR Invaders" on Android and iOS.
Accompanying suite, "AR Games" looks for specially produced cards and, on screen, can replace them with images of Mario, Kirby, a 3D art space, a fishing pond and so on. Smartphone games like "Toyota 86 AR" and "AR Defender 2" also make use of printout markers.
Google's "Ingress" leans on GPS, net connections, and the company's access to data on public spaces -- from parks and statues to museums, galleries, and well-known landmarks -- sending players out and about to claim land for one of two fictional factions; in return, Google receives live information on navigating from one point to another in real-world conditions.
"Clandestine: Anomaly" goes a bit further than that. Instead of turning a phone into a targeting reticule or hacking node, the idea is to make use of several normal functions: as a camera, a text and video messaging device.
Players will look like they're doing nothing unusual -- taking photos, checking a message. In the game, they're calling in strikes on alien forces, setting up signal towers, or directing allied units.
While players are encouraged to roam, guided by floating AI, Nuncio, it's different from "Ingress" in that the whole thing can take place within 2 square kilometers.
And as a first game from Canadian studio ZenFri, led by artist Corey King and with "Gears of War 2" writer Joshua Ortega on board, it's oriented towards single players -- there's no multiplayer meta-game to worry about.
But by recruiting not only a phone or tablet's camera, gyro, GPS, and data connection, but an expanded range of normal day-to-day functions, "Clandestine: Anomaly" hopes to become the mobile action game that is hidden in plain sight.
