KOSKI is a new building block game, which connects the physical and digital worlds together in a new and unusual creative way.
KOSKI is a board game that connects the physical and digital gaming worlds together in a new, unusual and playful way. It is a combination of real magnetic toy blocks and a virtual app that evokes digital interactive game play.
It comes as a physical building block set and app for tablets. The Player uses an iPad as a “magical mirror” which looks onto wooden blocks. By using an augmented reality and object recognition, as the player interacts and builds with the blocks the game soon begins to reveal it’s hidden worlds, characters and stories . It unlocks new and imaginative ways to play.
The game was created by Royal College of Art graduate Václav Mlynář as a school project. It uses wooden blocks, magnetic discs, and an iPad app to allow players to create digital worlds with features like trees, ladders, and waterfalls that characters can interact with.
As you can see from the video above, Koski tracks the magnetic discs and overlays them with virtual characters, trees, and waterfalls in the app portion of the game. From there, players can have their animated character explore the world and solve problems by rearranging the physical blocks in front of them.
“WE HAVE A BOARD WITH WOODEN BLOCKS AND MAGNETS THAT TRANSFORMS IF WE LOOK THROUGH THE CAMERA OF AN IPAD”
The magnetic discs allow stable structures to be built, no matter how complex, which can lead to a more imaginative digital landscape once the Koski iPad app is activated. Augmented reality is already a big deal given the meteoric rise of Pokémon Go, but the way Koski combines physical toys with AR is a new and innovative take that may get kids interested in building things with their hands instead of exclusively using a phone or a tablet.
In short, a development that enhances the imagination and skills that may be important in smaller, by inviting them to create worlds, understand the technology, or even understand better worlds as architecture, or developing stories.
There is no indication on whether Koski will be released to the public, but hopefully some other companies take some “inspiration” from the design and implement it in other products moving forward.
