Receipt Racer [video] was linked all over the Interwebs last month. If you’re reading this post, you’re likely already aware of it.
As a general rule, though I link to gaming tech, I m usually highlighting it for reasons other than the game itself. I am, after all, attempting to develop the ideas of play+tech beyond videogames.
Receipt Racer is essentially a classic driving game. The game software coordinates a projector, control input, and a receipt printer to create a path and obstacles the player steers their vehicle (projected in light) to avoid. The path is dynamically adaptive and not just a predefined course.
So what’s the big deal? I could probably download an emulator and start playing Spy Hunter in 10 minutes or less. Frankly, Spy Hunter, at nearly 30 years old, is much more advanced than Receipt Racer. And, still, Receipt Racer is pretty dang sweet. The author of the original post I read about Receipt Racer (via link below) gushes about it; the post is even titled “pure nerd magic.”
Why is this? I think it has something to do with the tangibility and reality of the play. This game creates a track that is just a bit more real than abstract pixels on a screen. I’ll grant you it s still an abstract 2D track being drawn on a piece of paper. Nevertheless, something essential to the human experience of play connects with this imaginary world brought into the real world. Driving up that receipt paper towards the horizon created by the weight of the paper spilling out of the printer is one notch closer to actually driving a dynamically generated obstacle course at high speed. Hearing the noise of the track being built as it’s noisily printed elicits a visceral response that a totally virtual environment lacks.
I’ve written about this phenomenon before (Technologies of the Imagination: Aliefs and Fantasy Play) and am finding myself more and more captivated by the factors and responses that characterize and distinguish play in the real world from that in a virtual one. Understanding these and their interrelation could yield unique and powerful new play experiences.
(via This is my next)