Read on for my coverage of Skate Day, an official partnership event between Augmented World Expo and Future Circus, Creator Campus & Skate House LA!
As passthrough capabilities improve with each new VR headset hitting the market, it opens the door to some interesting new ideas, such as a skateboarding game within augmented reality!
I threw on my best 90’s skater fit and handmade skateboard toy earring, and hopped into a Tony Hawk Pro Skater-inspired AR demo from Future Circus.
The headset setup was incredibly unique — so much so that I haven’t seen it before in all of my years in the VR space!
The extra long custom strap meant the Meta Quest 3 headset can be held over the shoulder or crossbody when not in use, and while skating I was instructed to grip onto the side of the headset at an angle, like a handle.
The skateboard also had a controller taped onto it, so that it can accurately detect a few tricks. They coded this controller so that if the skateboard moved in a certain way, like a kickflip, ollie, or rail grind, it can detect it and award a specific number of points for each trick.
The AR component of it was a letter collecting game- similar to Subway Surfers. For example, at the top of this ramp you can collect the letter “E”. Other letters were scattered in augmented reality all over Skate House — collect them all, and you spell out S-K-A-T-E.
I can definitely see how this could work in a skatepark setting, which is Skatrix’s eventual goal. I love the idea of gamifying skateparks so that there’s an AR game layered over reality: since skateparks are an important gathering place to let loose and have fun, adding an augmented game component could breathe some new excitement into these parks!
Learn more about this idea by reading Niantic’s article about Skatrix, excerpt below:
“In SKATRIX players take to the streets, navigating a map to explore and collect skatepark elements. Players can skate real world features with hyper accurate AR precision and realistic physics, or craft the skatepark of their dreams to pull off the perfect run.”
AR and skateboarding make an unlikely but unique pairing, and I’m excited to see a future where augmented reality exists out in the world in fun ways like this one!
This article was written without the use of AI.
Learn more:
AR Gaming Group and Future Circus
Thanks for reading! 🛹ᯅ
