It’s fair to say that a good amount of a community like ours has often dreamed of being a part of a video game. While the virtual reality that movies and cartoons has promised us for decades is still a far off (or at least bulky and expensive in its current state), we do have the unexpected joys of augmented reality. Recently, a rock climbing gym in New York has combined their world with the technology–the result of which looks like one hell of a great time.

This time trials AR system was made by rock climbing and coding enthusiast Jon Cheng for a community night at Brooklyn Boulders. Aptly named “Time Trial”, the program is projected on the wall where a participant can plot their route up with the goal of accumulating as many points as possible in the quickest amount of time. While this sort of thing isn’t much of what movies promised us for the future of gaming, we think it’s better in a lot of ways. All too often, we have to make a choice between digital and real experiences. Do we play a video game or go out and experience the world. With Cheng’s Time Trial mixing gaming and the real world, we can have both. There’s certainly nothing wrong with gaming alone while you trip over furniture if that’s your thing, but the idea of including others does have its appeal. The concept of projecting something onto a wall without the need of too much specialized equipment to a room full of participants is not only more inclusive, but also seems like a whole lot more fun.

What do you think of Jon Cheng’s rock climbing AR? Are you still more jazzed for personal AR? Let us know in the comments below!

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HT & Image: Wired