【Just a Stranger】

Just because you can,Just a Stranger doesn't mean you should.

That's my takeaway after playing a game of "tag" while wearing a head-mounted display at SXSW. I was at Sony's "Wow Factory" exhibit where the company demos research prototypes and other bleeding edge tech. There, in the back of the room, was a demo called "Superception," which was basically a bizarre and extremely cringeworthy game of tag.

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Along with three other participants, I donned a colored vest and some kind of mobile video display headset equipped with a camera (there were no cables, thankfully) which allows you to see the surrounding area. After getting accustomed to how depth perception works (spoiler: it doesn't), the view switches to a split-screen view of four boxes (much like the split-screen view while playing console games).

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

One box is still the view from my own headset and the other boxes are the first-person views of the other players. The idea is the combination of viewpoints allows you to navigate the maze and find the other players.

After a quick intro, it's time for the game to start, and this is where things get weird. I unwittingly volunteered to be "it" so I was handed a foam sword and told to chase my fellow players around the makeshift maze. You know, like tag,

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Except, you can actually chase the other players because there's a display strapped to your face. This is what it actually looked like (prepare to cringe.)

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As you can see, it looks totally and completely ridiculous. While it's true the camera allows you to navigate while wearing the headset, the view was still somewhat distorted and seeing the screens from three other headsets simultaneously was extremely disorienting.

The result was that we all walked around painfully slowly and awkwardly trying not to bump into everything around us. Depth perception is almost nonexistent in the headset, so trying to "tag" one another was really just a lot of awkward fumbling.

Needless to say, I was extremely relieved when the game ended and it was time to take the headsets off. While I felt okay while playing, I felt pretty unsettled by the time I took it off.

I'm honestly not even sure if I should compare this experience to virtual reality, since everything you see is a feed from a camera, so you're never really in an alternate reality, even though it kind of feels like one.

And maybe that's the point. Sony says the demo is meant to "explore the potentials of human perception and communication," so if their goal was simply to alter my perception, I suppose it was a success.

In any case, I really hope it's the last time I ever play tag in a head mounted display.

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