Angry Balls Attack My Kitchen In New 3D Shooter

Ball Invasion Turns Real World Into 3D Shooter for iPad2

We've seen AR overlay shooters using live camera input before. We've seen game surfaces generated by using the camera. What is new and innovative here is generating a 3D playing field using the camera and accurately, quickly, updating the environment during gameplay. 

What It Is

Ball Invasion uses simultaneous localization and mapping technology to generate real-time 3D maps of the environment as you move the iPad’s camera around. Once you generate the playing field your challenge is to shoot “malicious and cunning balls hiding in the real world,” with the challenges and difficulty increasing with each progressive level.

The scanning process is simple and the on-screen instructions are very clear and helpful. There's even a first-run video that instructs you how to scan an environment with your iPad2 camera. 

Ball Invasion is the first product from Stockholm-based computer vision startup 13th Lab. The startup specializes in simultaneous localization and mapping technology (as opposed to your average, everyday augmented reality) in mobile environments. Their platform, called SLAM, "lets you very accurately position your iPad 2 in 3D space and overlay stuff on reality without any known or printed visual markers, as is required in other solutions,” 13th Lab founder Petter Ivmark explains. 

They recommend backgrounds with high detail and I did notice the app mapping loads of tracking points based on highlights and contrasts as I captured the environment, similar to motion tracking in video effects software. In layman’s terms, the technology turns your real world surroundings into the backdrop for interactive, 3D game play.

Game Play

The game itself is quite fun. There increasing levels of skill involved such as ricocheting balls off of spinning objects to hit targets or bouncing off of surfaces like walls or tables. The accuracy is actually quite good and while it's a little difficult to judge the distance to target in 3D space, you zero-in quickly. 

I've had a few problems generating playing fields depending on the backgrounds and the app does not seem to support landscape mode (which would be ergonomically preferred), but these are small problems. The one big drawback is hand and arm fatigue. As fun as it is, the iPad2 isn't exactly lightweight when you're holding it up with both arms for several minutes at a time. Guess I need to load up on my 12oz. curls to build up arm strength.

Ball Invasion for iPad2 has been out a while and is available on iTunes with 50% discounted introductory pricing ($1.99).