Post Published on June 20, 2012.
Last Updated on April 28, 2016 by davemackey.
I’m not a big fan of Windows 8 (though I’m writing this post on it) and I’m not a big fan of exercise apps (e.g. Wii Fit), I find them too boring. But today in one of those select moments when I felt energetic b/c my auto-immune issues weren’t weighing me down I downloaded this game from the Windows Store called FitBall – and it is pretty awesome.
Now it doesn’t need to run on Windows 8. It looks like they built it for Windows 8 Metro, so maybe that is all it runs on, but it could be made to run on older Windows versions if the developers wanted to.
Essentially balls appear on the screen and you attempt to blow them up before they disappear – using your body. This uses your laptop’s webcam and then maps your movements against the locations of the balls. I almost broke a sweat playing through twice. Below you can see a photo of the augmented reality it creates – I’m real and the exploding balls are not…not vice versa (I know some people might get a little confused).
Where this is really exciting is in the potential for games that can be first person shooters and so on. It was always so frustrating when you got shot b/c your guy didn’t duck right, “Awww, I totally wouldn’t ducked before that.” Well, using this method one could…
