Game designer Keita Takahashi is a man with boundless imagination. But that observation feels almost like an understatement, especially when considering the breadth of creations he’s left in his wake (Katamari Damacy, Noby Noby Boy, ALPHABET, designing a children’s playground, Tenya Wanya Teens, and many more). Takahashi currently works with the quirky, San Francisco-based game studio Funomena, where they are currently at work on the sorta-friendship-simulator Wattam. Yet, Wattam isn’t the only project in Takahashi and co.’s tunnel vision: they have their sights set on augmented reality as well. Specifically of the Google’s Project Tango variety.
Woorld’s version of reality is a tad cuter
Woorld is an upcoming collaborative AR-project at Funomena between Takahashi, Vu Ha, Ryan Mohler and Brandi House for Google’s Tango. The in-development Tango is an exercise in both augmented and virtual technologies specifically aimed at smartphones, and will be initially accessible via the Lenovo PHAB 2 Pro’s launch in September. Tango holds promises of AR-aided shopping and games galore, overlaying our everyday reality with digital artifacts. Though perhaps what it needed most to set it apart was the signature whimsy of Funomena, whose ever-cheerful art, overlapped with our everyday reality, is enough to brighten up anyone’s day.
One of the most exciting factors about Woorld‘s imminent release, especially in our post-Pokémon Go universe, is that AR-technology is now in the mainstream. Everyone’s seen it, experienced it, laughed alongside it, and knows of its infinite charm. AR is no longer a foreign mystery. With Woorld, Takahashi’s ideal brand of joy is easily implemented into our real world, where even an otherwise boring toilet can be made into being the most endearing place in the world. In fact, Takahashi’s daily blog can be seen as the perfect preface to Woorld, wherein he draws adorable sketches over what would otherwise be considered as mundane day-to-day photos of his surroundings.
With Lenovo phones and all other probable Google phones that will eventually support the technology, Woorld leads the charge of Tango’s most promising and hopefully delightful apps. If you have a devkit of the Tango, you can even try out Woorld now. Maybe the most alarming factor of Funomena’s Woorld is that the world they perceive really isn’t all too different from our own. Since, after all, deep down we’re all like Woorld’s tiny little adventurer, forever curious and hungry for snacks. If there’s any difference between that world and ours, it’s just that Woorld’s version of reality is a tad cuter.
If you have a devkit for Project Tango, you’re in luck, because you can try out Woorld for yourself now. For the rest of us, Woorld will luckily launch alongside the Lenovo PHAB 2 Pro in September.
