One of the most exciting things about HoloLens is that no one is entirely sure what to do with it. It’s a game-changing device that’s bound to bring some revolutionary new applications. So far, developers have been getting the hang of it by adapting old ideas to interact with the real world. Now, some fine folks have put together a brilliant demo of the classic game Lemmings. But this time you have to save the title characters from falling off of your furniture.
Globacore is a design firm that focuses on creating games and interactive promotions for brands. It appears that they are either figuring out the ropes with HoloLens or just having some fun with their latest creation, HoloLems.
For those who don’t remember Lemmings, it was a 2D side-scrolling strategy game in which the player controlled various aspects of the environment to safely guide little green-haired creatures from the entrance to the exit of a level. The cute title characters simply followed the leader and if they reached say, the edge of a cliff, they would just walk right off, as lemmings have been thought to do. The player wins the game by ensuring that bridges are built or blockades are mined, leading the majority of the team to the end of the stage.
But with HoloLens, your whole house can be a level. And there can be an infinite amount of levels as long as the user is willing to change locations or redesign their living space. Microsoft has most notably highlighted this type of integration between games and real environments with their demos of Minecraft for HoloLens. That one looks amazing but it’s more like having a very advanced Lego set to let your imagination run wild. So far, Lemmings is the best example I’ve seen of using the real world to play a game.
Who knows if you’ll ever be able to actually play this thing. It will be years before HoloLens makes it to the public and it’s not guaranteed that the final product will be anything like the current iteration. But whenever that time comes, Microsoft is going to need some apps and Lemmings seems good enough to launch a thousand Flappy Bird-style clones.