Do you remember that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the Enterprise crew becomes addicted to an augmented reality game that almost kills everyone? Well, an engineer has just recreated The Game, the addictive (and deadly) game from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", now available on HoloLens.
If you're a trekkie, you surely remember "The Game", the sixth episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG). In that episode, Riker returns from a vacation on the planet Risa with a game he's eager to share with the crew. Unfortunately, the game is psychologically addictive (causing the crew to suffer from Virtual Reality Addiction), and quickly turns almost all Enterprise crew members into mind-controlled pawns of the Ktarians, who use the devices to gain control of Starfleet. Well, now The Game, the addictive (and deadly) game from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", is available on HoloLens.
How the HoloLens Version Works
In that episode, players have to concentrate to get the disc into the cone. And while the HoloLens version of ST:TNG's game isn't exactly like the fictional version, it's alarmingly similar: it uses your emotional state to gently slide small discs into cones (though without the risk of ending up as Ktarian-controlled slaves). It was created by Robert Burke, a MIT graduate, and uses a Pip galvanic skin response biosensor to measure players' relaxation levels. It does this by measuring the electrical resistance of your skin, or basically how sweaty it is, to determine your stress levels. The lower your stress levels, the more likely a disc will go into a cone.
The big difference between the fictional version of the game and Burke's HoloLens version is that there's no super-intense pleasure reward that makes you feel like Riker on the planet Risa... which probably makes this version much safer, and less likely to take over rational thought. A fun fact: these two videos of the game were posted about a year ago on Burke's channel, and the clearly productive engineer hasn't posted any videos since. It's almost as if he's been truly absorbed in something that prevented him from uploading more videos. Let's hope he's not under Ktarian control.
Official site: Star Trek: The Game.
