One of the most interesting uses of Augmented Reality that I’ve seen yet (and all seem to employ the ARToolKit) is Levelhead (image above, video below), a 3D Spatial Memory Game designed by Julian Oliver who also created Packet Garden.

levelHead uses a hand-held solid-plastic cube as its only interface. On-screen it appears each face of the cube contains a little room, each of which are logically connected by doors.

In one of these rooms is a character. By tilting the cube the player directs this character from room to room in an effort to find the exit.

Some doors lead nowhere and will send the character back to the room they started in, a trick designed to challenge the player’s spatial memory. Which doors belong to which rooms?

There are three cubes (levels) in total, each of which are connected by a single door. Players have the goal of moving the character from room to room, cube to cube in an attempt to find the final exit door of all three cubes. If this door is found the character will appear to leave the cube, walk across the table surface and vanish.. The game then begins again.

There have been several comparisons made between Levelhead and the Rubriks Cube, the use of a tactile interface, navigation between the six faces of the cube etc. but some more interesting comparisons might be Pasks Universal Constructor, the Reactable (videos here) and the toy Cube World.

If you interested in the technology employed in this Mediamatic are organising a three day workshop designing Augmented Reality games from the 02/06/08 to the 04/06/08 of which Julian Oliver is one of the three workshop leaders.