Virtual Gardener
The ‘Virtual Gardener’ (depicted below) is a very simple web-based 2D augmented reality game engine. Using color tracking in Flash, players can tend a virtual garden and grow a small patch of flowers by waving around a physical object in front of their webcam.
waterin' the virtual plants
The game is currently a very rough prototype and is missing all sorts of niceties (i.e. sound effects, scoring mechanisms, etc.) – hopefully I can refine this framework so that it can serve as the basis for a host of color-drive 2D AR games.
If you’d like to try it yourself feel free to click on the ‘Start’ button below. You will need a webcam and a solid colored object about 2″ by 2″ in order to play. When prompted, simply hold up this object so that it fits within the small rectangle in the middle of the screen. Once the object appears within this region, click on the button that appears to cause the game to “memorize” the color value of your object. From here you will be able to wave your object around in front of your webcam as though it was a mouse cursor.