Carcade lets you play your seedy neighborhood

This isn't the first stab at an "in-car gaming system" we've seen, but it may be the most novel. Carcade! is an "augmented reality in-car videogame" designed by students at the Berlin University of the Arts. Using a webcam, the landscape is captured and incorporated into the game itself, letting you navigate the hellish urban environment that you call home with a little spacecraft just like you've always wanted to. The faster and more erratically your friend drives, the more difficult game play becomes -- we just wish we could play it on the window itself instead of a laptop. This would be just the thing for those cross-country road trips, though it might get a little dull while passing through the vast alkali plains of The Great American Desert. Watch the Carcade! road test after the break.

[Via Edmunds]

[Jack @ Oct 9th 2008 11:12AM]

see, there is so much more u can do in the back seat of your car :)

[wazzupalex @ Oct 9th 2008 11:16AM]

This has major potential. Game looks so 80s retro, but once it's projected onto the front (passenger!) windshield, then one can take out traffic wardens for extra points! Yeh, a fantasy realised at last! Thinking about it, this has major applications for the driver too. Directions etc could be overlaid into the windshield, along with special offers etc.

[jahcriado @ Oct 9th 2008 11:59AM]

80's retro? That is so star fox which came out in '93. It was a good game for the SNES but unfortunately they pretty much did the same ship on rails game for every game since, even though processor power has like increased 10x?

[j_g_puff @ Oct 9th 2008 12:40PM]

Similarly awesome is ARQuake:
(http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/arquake/)
This has been around for ages and I'm not sure if they're still working on it, but it's awesomeness is undeniable.

[Persian @ Oct 9th 2008 12:50PM]

they already do this. BMW and Benz have had overlay on their windshields for a while. they can show the GPS on the actual road so you know where to turn. I remember seeing a video of it a while back.

[bolezhinkov @ Oct 9th 2008 1:58PM]

nothing like a few special offers coming up when you are trying to drive through a snowstorm on black ice at night.

[urmomFTW @ Oct 9th 2008 11:19AM]

its actually StarFox retro.

[aardWolf @ Oct 9th 2008 11:38AM]

Yeah... they totally stole the StarFox music and sound effects... not to mention the ship.

[Ekauq @ Oct 9th 2008 11:19AM]

Do a barrel roll!

[mercurysunblast @ Oct 9th 2008 12:04PM]

I freakin' love your avatar!!!
Quake 1 FTW!!!

[TomFox @ Oct 9th 2008 12:39PM]

Use the Boost to get through! Hehe I love how StarFox still gets referenced all the time.

[Joe H @ Oct 9th 2008 11:28AM]

Doesn't seem any different at all from Arcade Reality for the Garnet (Palm OS) Treos.

http://www.toyspring.com/arcade/

[Mikey @ Oct 9th 2008 11:39AM]

Right, but the Palm one doesn't seem to utilize the environment, whereas this outlines objects and makes them impassible.

[Joe @ Oct 9th 2008 11:41AM]

pew pew pew

[bobby @ Oct 9th 2008 11:48AM]

DO A BARREL ROLL!

[Cory Pedroza @ Oct 9th 2008 11:49AM]

How many points for taking out the old lady crossing the street?

[Andrew @ Oct 9th 2008 11:50AM]

Those Germans are good :)

[JOMINY @ Oct 9th 2008 11:56AM]

DO A BARREL ROLL

[Wulile @ Oct 9th 2008 12:10PM]

Oh man! I want this right now!! And I WILL play it while I'm driving!!!

[V @ Oct 9th 2008 12:50PM]

I've always felt that the bricks in my church would make a good metroid or mario level.

[John @ Oct 9th 2008 12:49PM]

Anybody think that this thing isn't actually interactive? Notice the movement of the ship. It's jerky, and the speed varies exactly like that of a motion tweened object, rather than a constant, absolute speed. Perhaps if it were controlled by a mouse it would look like this, but the shot of the guy holding a control pad shows this obviously isn't the case. Judging by the familiar transparent shapes and cheesy partially 3D menu, I'd say this were animated with Flash.

[Mister Cow @ Oct 9th 2008 1:04PM]

you know, i've been looking for something to do while sitting at red lights. I also have 8 buttons on my steering wheel that don't do anything right now because I replaced my stereo. and my car has a HUD built in. they need to make me a game...

[EV0LUTION @ Oct 9th 2008 1:45PM]

"The faster and more erratically your friend drives, the more difficult game play becomes"

Is there a problem officer...

Do you know how fast you where going?

Yea I was trying to kill my friend!

[alexicov @ Oct 9th 2008 1:46PM]

HAHA i used to do that as a kid when i got bored

but now with technology who needs imagination!!

[jorge @ Oct 9th 2008 3:11PM]

From that video all i saw was kinetosis

Quoting wikipedia:

"Motion sickness or kinetosis is a condition in which a disagreement exists between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system's sense of movement. Depending on the cause it can also be referred to as seasickness, carsickness, simulation sickness, airsickness, or space sickness."

aka "moooom, my brother vomited all over daddy's laptop"

[John H. @ Oct 9th 2008 3:43PM]

star fox FTW

[richardginn @ Oct 9th 2008 6:44PM]

so the only real way this game gets hard is if we are playing the game while in a police chase???

[Nik @ Oct 9th 2008 9:45PM]

I came up with this idea when I was about 7, (20 years ago) when I was on the way to the airport for a holiday with my family and I was in the back seat and I imagined that the window had a display inside it and you controlled Mario, making him jump over lampposts outside the window. The idea was to make sure he didnt fall behind as the car you were in moved forward. Like scrolling platform games here you have to keep up. A few years later I was wondering how to implement something like this and I was imagining cameras pointing outwards and checking for contrast between the sky and the backgrounds. I imagined full twenty minute sessions on this game as a kid. Even now if I'm in the back of a car I am obsessively aware of the lampposts as I drive by.

Probably no one will believe me now except my family and I don't know why I would care since I am not a capitalist. I guess I'm happy to see someone make it.

[Nik @ Oct 9th 2008 9:50PM]

I just watched the video. My idea was slightly more advanced, to have the display inside the passenger window, rather than on laptop. :p

[ac14 @ Oct 10th 2008 12:54AM]

looks fake :/

[tealfixie @ Oct 10th 2008 1:26AM]

starfox anyone?

[Prasand J. @ Oct 10th 2008 4:56AM]

I have two words for you: highway speeds.

Relative motion would be a bitch if the camera really was capturing a view similar to looking straight out the window (and not towards the front angle of the car). Things blur at highway speeds.

[Matthew @ Oct 12th 2008 1:39AM]

The video is gone :(