This past weekend was the Come Out and Play Festival, “a street games festival dedicated to exploring new styles of games and play”. Many activities were offered, but the one that appealed to me the most was the GIANT game of Space Invaders.

That’s right, GIANT. Designers Kuan Huang and Evan Barba designed a version of everyone’s favorite Atari game to be projected onto the side of a building, with the player’s body as the controller. How could this not be amazing?

Space Invaders was being run outside of the Come Out and Play opening ceremony, so luckily the wine was free flowing, and people were anxious to line up for the game. I waited for about 15 minutes before I got my turn. The way it worked was that they pointed a video camera at me which then was fed into a motion sensor program on a laptop and calibrated specifically for my height. At the top of the building across the street I could see the invaders from space, slowly making their way down the side. I could also see my spaceship at the bottom. If I leaned to the right, it went right, If I leaned to the left, it went left. When I wanted to shoot, I had to throw my hands over my head (really just one hand, but everyone was using both, it was hard not to for some reason). The whole thing was much more tame than I was expecting.

It was fun, and I’m glad I did it, but I wish it had been more exciting. I was anticipating running back and forth under the invaders. I thought I would be out of breath when it was over. They could even spice it up more if they gave you a plastic gun to aim.

Everyone who took a turn lasted about a minute before they got bored; especially because there was only one level. The general consensus of the crowd seemed to be that Space Invaders was way more fun to watch than to play. So, not quite amazing, but a really interesting start.