Developer At Capitola Posts Video Of ‘Whac-A Mole’ Game Created Using HoloLens

An augmented reality and virtual reality developer in The Netherlands used the HoloLens of Microsoft to create a prototype of a game similar to the Whac-A-Mole game in a “Black Mirror” episode. The game was featured in the “Playtest” episode of the TV show. David Robustelli, the developer at Capitola VR, says the prototype app is a simulation in which the moles are hit when it pop up and then disappear.

However, Mashable notes that while the prototype app would not come to users soon, it gives a peak of how hard it is to come up with science-fiction scenarios that are not the only a preview of things in development. In the “Playtest” episode, Cooper Redfield, the hero, played an AR version of the Whac-A-Mole game. Using the HoloLens, players could also do the same thing.

According to UploadVR, the developer combined the spatial mapping capabilities of HoloLens with hand tracking which allowed the player to hit the mole on the head similar to the Whac-A-Mole game in “Playtest.” When the player lifts the index finger upwards, which is the ready state, the HoloLens would recognize the hand and create a collider on it.

While the hand is in the ready state, the hand’s position could be tracked. It will cause the collider to be exactly where the hand is and allows the hand to collide with the moles by whacking it on the head just like in the Whac-A-Mole game featured in “Black Mirror.”

Gizmodo reports that it is possible to build a Lego version of the Whac-A-Mole game that could even keep score. Mike Dobson built and designed the game in which players try to whack eight small helmeted characters 50 times. The characters pop out randomly from Lego tires. It uses eight Lego Mindstorm motors, six color sensors, a touch sensor, and a pair of control units to monitor and display the score.