Father.io mixes AR, VR, drones and mobile phones in laser tag game coming this summer
Not your father's laser tag
We already covered Father.io when in 2014 but the project has evolved so much since then that it's necessary to start from scratch.
Father.io is an AR game that uses the camera of your phone to create a laser tag game in real life. To make it more real, you'll have to hook up a small peripheral called the Inceptor on the back of your phone.
The Inceptor contains a battery, a laser emitter and six sensors to map the surrounding players:
It's also using a local broadcasting tech that promises minimal lag.
So how do you play?
Players will set up the area and meet in the field, using these lasers to shoot each other while some players, comfortably installed in their home computers or tablets, will see the battlefield from a top down perspective, enabling them to give orders and mount strategies.
They can even use drones controlled with VR headsets as shown in this concept trailer:
It all sounds quite bonkers, almost as an attempt to mix every piece of technology that is buzzing today but you also have to give them some merits for even attempting the project.
People are interested at least as the Indiegogo campaign got more than $300,000.
A pack of two Inceptors should cost $50 and they expect to start shipping them this summer.
[Source]