Google Lets You Fire Up Your Lightsaber with Mobile Browser Game
- Wednesday, December 16th, 2015
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Google has already created a variety of promotions centred around the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, from Gmail reskins to Tie Fighters in Google Maps, but its latest experience, timed to coincide with the films premiere, might be the most impressive yet.
Lightsaber Escape was created by the companys Chrome Experiments unit, which aims to produce unique applications for the firms web browser, in collaboration with Disney, Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic. It enables users to attempt an escape from a Star Destroyer, taking on First Order Stormtroopers with a lightsaber.
The game accomplishes this by paring the Chrome mobile browser on a smartphone with a desktop browser, and using the smartphones accelerometer and motion detector to mimic the players movements. Players move through the spaceship, blocking and deflecting laser blasts, and finally confronting an elite Stormtrooper in melee combat.
“The rich 3D graphics were built with WebGL, enabling beautiful, high fidelty 3D renders within the browser. Were also using WebRTC and WebSockets to enable high accuracy, real-time communication between your mobile and desktop devices, reducing latency and improving interactivity,” said Paul Irish, product manager for Chrome at Google. “Plus, building with web standards means the experience works across browsers, and without plug-ins.”
Once opened on a smartphones mobile browser, it requires only a custom URL to pair up with a computer screen, demonstrating how smoothly firms can now cross the divide between desktop and mobile, and offering an inspiring glimpse at what kind of effects can be achieved with this sort of ambitious thinking.