Handhelds
A sword, staff, shield, blaster, or whatever your game calls for: devices you carry or wear. Cast a spell, activate a skill, or blast a target. No phone required.
In prototype · Phase 1: Magic Tag
Play and create interactive adventures in the real world.
Handheld devices, props, and games that light up, make sound, and react to how you play. Indoors or out.
Why
We want a world full of imaginative physical adventures.
- Create as well as playEvery player can also be a maker and storyteller.
- Jump right inYou can play on your own, but Aura is built to make joining in with others easy.
- Powered by a communityPlayers, makers, and storytellers all add to Aura. Everyone gets to play and build on what they share.
- Technology that serves playTechnology should make things more fun and leave room for imagination.
What Aura is
Props and puzzles
Escape-room style devices and targets: locks that only open when three players act at once, keys that glow brighter as you get close, targets that fight back. Built from cardboard and tape all the way up to custom circuit boards and 3D-printed enclosures.
Games
Games and stories, from simple casual games to multi-stage campaigns. Build on existing game rules, or create whole new games from scratch.
Where things stand
- Groundwork, doneProof that the hardware and software can work.
- Magic Tag, we are hereThe core handheld, built and validated.
- Lots of GamesMulti-prop, coordinated play.
- Characters and StoriesA persistent narrative layer.
- Crafting and RealmsDigital-to-physical crafting and community-run worlds.
Magic Tag
we are here
Done
- The Aura Pusher, a bare-minimum working prototype of the handheld, with lights, sound, vibration, and motion sensing.
- Two games you can play on it today: Red Light Green Light and Tag.
- The Tag game works with off-the-shelf infrared tag gear.
- The game engine that runs games on the device, with rules, scenes, and effects.
In progress
- Custom circuit boards, now on their second round.
Planned
- Gesture casting. It worked in an earlier prototype and will be rebuilt for the current game engine.
- Bringing the rules of magic into a game.
- Team support: how players create, join, and leave teams.
- A 3D-printed enclosure.
- Full instructions to build a handheld.
Aura is being built to be opened up, modded, and extended. The prototype firmware and game engine are open source (MIT).
aura-prototype on GitHubGroundwork, done:
- Rules of magic written and tested
- Infrared and radio tested, with our open infrared analyzer and RFM69 analyzer tools
- Escape-room puzzles playtested
- Nine years of prototypes
Keep me posted
Be the first to hear about playtests, alpha maker builds, and when there's a game you can play.