Snake the Planet! by MPU is a new project in Sydney that takes the classic mobile phone game ‘Snake’ and “adopts it for the urban canvas”.
When ‘Snake the Planet!” is projected onto buildings, each level is generated individually and based on the selected facade. Windows, door frames, pipes and signs all become boundaries and obstacles in the game. Shapes and pixels collide with these boundaries like real objects. The multi player mode lets players intentionally block each other’s path in order to destroy the opponent.
With ‘Snake the Planet’, any facade becomes a screen for urban gaming.
MPU (Mobile Projection Unit) plans to develop the work further towards an iPad application and eventually release the code as open source for other artists and designers to build on. It’s built using the increasingly popular OpenFrameworks
Looks like a nice piece of work and – note to my students – the video does a great job of both documenting, presenting and explaining the piece.
In a nice piece of synchronicity, I just found out that one member of MPU is Rene Christen, an ex-student of mine from COFA (the other MPU members are Lukasz Karluk and Nick Clark). One of the Creative Producers was another friend, Tim Buesing. I didn’t even know they knew each other. Sydney’s a small world.
(Oh, and strictly speaking, Snake was a video game before it made it onto the Nokia. I remember playing the BBC Micro version as a kid).
