November 23, 2019 – Magic Leap has announced that, Weta Workshop, the studio that helped create Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders, has presented its latest title, Boosters: an intergalactic spatial computing experience where players steer a rocket around their living room, collecting asteroid “gubbins” on the way. Boosters was born out of an internal ‘game jam’ hosted at the Weta studio in Wellington, New Zealand, wherein designers and developers got together and worked on quickly creating a game.
Nine teams, comprising programmers, artists, audio experts, and designers, worked together to build a prototype game. Boosters emerged as the most viable product and Weta Workshop decided to ship it to the world. As a result, the new Boosters game is now available for download on Magic Leap World.
In Boosters, players direct a rocketship to collect targets by using the control for the Magic Leap One headset. The angle that the control is twisted and flexed to changes the orientation of the rocket, and pulling the trigger increases the thrust. The concept meshes the surrounding room in real time, so if a player steers the rocket too close to the walls, or any other physical obstacle, the rocket explodes. Other details include if the flames from the rocket’s engines get too close to real world objects, they leave visible scorch marks. Furthermore, the game constantly scans the room and continually updates the world around the player in order to give them the freedom to move anywhere they want.
Magic Leap stated in a blog post that its Magic Leap World Concepts program gives quick prototypes like Boosters a home so that other developers can see and learn from them. Developers with an idea for a spatial computing experience can share it on Magic Leap’s Creator Portal. Interested developers can also register to be a part of the next Magic Leap Dev Jam.
Video credit: Magic Leap/YouTube
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.