As I roamed the show floor at Play NYC yesterday, I saw many cool games. Right before I left, I saw something that was not a gaming console, even though I got to play a game on it. In 1871, Lewis Carroll published Through the Looking-Glass, where Alice steps through a mirror into a world of wonder. In 2018, I got to peer through The Looking Glass myself. Developed by Looking Glass Factory, I can tell you that this device holds just as much potential for wonder as Alice’s mirror.
What is The Looking Glass?
Having seen it in person, I still cannot fully explain to you what The Looking Glass is. You might ask if it is 3D, VR or AR and honestly, the answer is yes. The Looking Glass takes forty-five different views of an image and presents them in the glass cube space at once. This creates a true holographic image that can be viewed and manipulated in real-time at 60fps. I got to play a game called Voxatron that was like holographic Robotron. It was simple and utilized pixel graphics, but what I saw was nuts. Particles exploded and were created so fast you would expect input lag and/or frame rate drops. It ran as smoothly as the glass it was presented in.
How Do I Get One?
The Looking Glass requires no 3D glasses or VR headsets. What you see above is all you really need aside from your computer. The standard model (foreground) is 8.2″ x 3.7″ x 6.1″ and weighs about five pounds. The larger weighs about nineteen pounds. Currently, in Kickstarter with eleven days to go, they are priced at $450 and $2500, respectively. It sounds pricey, but this is not (just) a gaming console. The Looking Glass is a development tool with huge potential. Pretty much any creator of visual media (and probably others) can benefit from it. It needs to be checked out.
