Magia Transformo: The Dance of Transformation is a sort of augmented reality game and design experiment that combines both physical and digital elements to literally and metaphorically immerse the player within a “magic circle.” The extent to which the game had been developed involved players starting off as neophyte witches who follow the instructions of a mysterious voice named “Alistair” to sanctify and don various elemental hats and robes that are equipped with runed wooden medallions containing RFID chips. The players would bring the magical garments and their medallions to the “magical altar” containing an RFID reader which would then update their clothing within the digital interface, which came in the form of a cell phone placed within a spellbook prop. Once the players have their proper attire, they are prompted to follow ritualistic movements around a cauldron and their movements are processed via Kinect tracking that senses the various colors that are shown on the cell phone’s screen. Because this game was limited to specific areas where all of the equipment was set up, design meetings for this game explored the production of a location-based mobile app addition in the same vein as AR games such as Ingress and Pokemon Go which would allow the player to delve into the lore of the Magia Transformo world and further develop their magical personas. However, the production for the mobile side of things never took off. You can find out a lot more information about the project by clicking on the Transformative Play Lab icon towards the top of the page!

IndieCade 2017

We had the opportunity to showcase Magia Transformo: The Dance of Transformation at the 2017 IndieCade Festival in Los Angeles, an international event celebrating the development of innovative independent games where people have the opportunity to play and preview indie games from around the world. Below you can see some pictures that I took during the play sessions that we hosted at IndieCade!