A creative set-up turns a standard living room into intense hot air balloon archery.
Ever since the release of the HTC Vive Tracker we’ve seen some truly creative projects that have utilized the device’s tracking to transform everyday objects into immersive VR tools. Whether it be guns, baseball bats or even a house cat, the game-changing peripheral has already seen an extensive amount of use by the development community.
So when YouTuber iBrews decided to create his own unique experience, he did what anyone of us would have done: he attached a tracker to a rotating ceiling fan and developed an evil hot air balloon archery game.
The intuitive concoction features a Vive Tracker secured inside a thin bag which in turn is tied to the blade of a common ceiling fan. In-game the device is seen as heavily-armed hot air balloon sporadically firing projectiles at the player. The deadly balloon rotates relentlessly as it follows the device swinging from the fan, circling like a hungry vulture. The player than uses a bow equipped with flaming arrows to shoot down the inflatable fiend.
One could be inclined to ask why you couldn’t just program the balloon to rotate instead of going through the trouble of using a tracker and ceiling fan. Well for one thing the proof-of-concept could help determine the limits to how fast the Vive Tracker can travel before performance is affected. Other than that it’s simply another excellent example of creative ingenuity the device has inspired since its debut. Hopefully developers continue to go against the grain and experiment with the technology in new and bizarre ways– this is the time to experiment. After all, one of these bizarre projects could very well be the next big advancement in VR.
