Traveller AR: a MMORPG for iPhone

Fight... Trade... Explore... Those three key words will describe the gameplay of the new Traveller AR iPhone game. I already linked to Traveller AR in the link collection of last week, but I'm so excited I decided to write some more on this upcomming MMORPG. The game will be available on iPhone in the summer of 2011. I will keep you posted on news. For your own Traveller AR fix, visit the links at the bottom of the post.



Setting
As the name suggests, the setting in which the game is taking place is the Traveller universe, in particular the Third Emperium. This should mean that the game comes with a very rich background and a huge universe to play in. The hexagon space charts imediately feel familiar. The game will offer the majority of the classes found in the pen and paper RPG, including traders, belters, Scientists and diplomats. The artwork of available ships look inspiring.



Augmented reality
A cool feature of the game is the use of augmented reality. In augmented reality game graphics are added to the real world environment, integrating the two. Imagine your iPhone working as a pair of virtual reality goggles, registering the real world with it's camera and adding a layer of 3d objects to those images for game play. According to the website, augmented reality enambles you to:

• Paint the ‘real’ sky around you as our game canvas.


• Remove the constraints of gaming on a phone, a monitor, or even a BigScreen, and let you “wave your phone around” in real space, and see fully rendered 3D objects drawn on top of what your camera sees.


• Use your iPhone’s Compass and Accelerometers to let you “look around” you in full 360 degrees by 360 degrees of freedom (just as if you had a huge window in your ship’s cockpit or bridge).


• Use your iPhone’s GPS to detect your location and help you connect with other real players near you physically as well as virtually.
  Use your iPhone’s Camera to bring forward the real world and let it interact with the objects in the game.

Previews
As you would expect from a company aiming for a new MMORPG, ingZ Inc, the developers of the game, are well connected in the social media. Their Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/TravellerAR features preview of the game.




Links
Traveller AR
Traveller AR's Facebook page
Traveller AR's twitter account