By Andrew Liszewski
This isn’t the first slick iPhone concept we’ve brought you from Les Editions Volumique, a Paris-based publishing house that focuses on using the paper book as a unique computer platform. Their (i)Pawn concept let you use the iPhone as a game board, complete with physical playing pieces. But this time around it’s the iPhone that serves as the playing piece, interacting with a physical game board.
(i)Pirates has you taking a pirate ship around a fairly large fold-out game board (it looks like you’ll need an entire kitchen table to play it) by placing your iPhone onto different sections of the board which are then displayed on screen, complete with your ship and various other animated elements. I’m assuming the iPhone’s camera is used to detect what section of the board it’s actually been placed on, and while their website is pretty vague on how you actually go about playing the game, or interact with other players, the concept does appear to have some unique potential.
This is great. However, it is not enough to make someone really be excited about it. However, great job on the article. I think I might check this out and play with it to see if it does prove me wrong.
I actually like how Apple went through with the board games. Usually, when you play board games and want to really have fun with it, you use your imagination and try to make the board move in your mind.
With what Apple has done with this board game, you actually see interactive stuff moving around by your phone. Good Job to the writer, and the makers of the game. 😀