Every Halloween, children of all ages come knocking on homes, expecting candies and other goodies, but what about a spooky game? Well, that's what engineer Rich Fiore set up on his house in Chicago.
Eerie video games and Halloween have always gone hand in hand. They just mesh together so well. So with a modified Wii remote that's been turned into a futuristic-looking gun paired with IR emitters, which is used to place the crosshair, Fiore created one heck of a shooter game that's perfect for the season.
"I've been working on this for about three weeks. I knew Halloween was coming so I wanted to have something for the kids," Fiore tells Inverse.
To create the haunted house effect, the Chicago engineer used projectors, a camera to map and align the visuals and probably a little black magic — yep, it definitely looks like witchcraft. He also used Unreal engine to create the animation.
Apparently, this idea stems from Fiore's fascination with virtual reality and the Oculus Rift, and he developed this project when he figured that he can do something along the lines.
With a ghost that goes round and round, the game is still in the beta phase, as Fiore intends to add in more visuals, such as spiders crawling on the ghosts and people peeking out from the windows.
"This is the first projected test to iron out the bugs in the camera mapping process, the projection alignment, and the gun targeting system (the gun is not in view but the infrared markers are visible in front of the house) More characters and AI are in the works," Fiore explains on his Vimeo page.
What's also amazing about this is how the walls break when the player misses and shoots them instead, revealing Tyvek construction sheets underneath. On top of that, the windows realistically shatter when shot. That's just magnificent workmanship right there.
According to Fiore, no one on his street has seen the game in motion yet (unless they watch the video below), and he plans to officially premiere his work on Halloween night.
Don't forget to check out the video to see Fiore's work in action. Also, if you're around his neighborhood, it might be a good idea to pay a visit on Halloween.
