Hey guys it's Carrie Anne. And Mannix.
Usually with Mannix here we're
talking, have been talking Pops. Yeah.
But sometimes we talk sorta video games, gaming.
Yeah. And that's actually why we're here
today.
We wanted to talk about, I guess you can call it,
an accessory that you can use with your
mobile phone to take that flat gaming
experience into a more about augmented
reality.
And I'm talking about the Merge Cube.
The Merge Cube. So here it is the Merge Cube.
It's ... you probably can't really tell it
is this kind of like a
really tough foam. And on every side of
the cube is almost like these secret
hieroglyphic writings on it. But it's
this writing on the cube that will help
your mobile phone to turn an experience
into a 3D or augmented reality
experience. Well usually when you're
thinking about technology you're talking
about hardware and hardware with kids
and their risk of something getting
broken. Right? But this Merge Cube being
this foam. If [it] happens to fall, the nice
thing about it being a foam is you're
not gonna have it fall on the ground and
crack. Ah! [laugh] Probably not supposed to do that.
But it's not broken. With the Merge Cube
you've got the cube itself. So then on the
bottom in the package is the activation code.
And you've already set up your phone.
So to go through the activation, go into the
App Store or Google Play Store and then
download one of the Merge Cube apps. Some are free and some there's a small fee to it.
Once you've ... picked an app that you
want to try and you download, the first
time you use the Merge Cube you will
have to set it up. You enter the
activation code. It registers on your
phone. This particular cube is
registered so if I scan it it doesn't
need to go over the activation code
already. You can look at 3D models.
You're holding sort of a skull at your hand
which is really cool. It has to read the
markings. As soon as that kind of gets
into camera view it it interprets what
each side actually is. To be or not to
be, That is my question.
And there are games.
This is Merge Things which is a bunch of mini apps built into one.
And you turn the cube. Find one of the mini applications you want to play.
Then you have to click on
it and it will go into that.
Oh camp fire in your hand.
also comes in the package is this black
case [mobile stand] which is used to....
really you think it's just packaging but the great thing is it actually will hold your
phone it has a little cut in the front
will hold the phone.
So will give you a little more hands-free
action to manipulate and move the cube around.
My favourite is probably Diffused.
Yeah I was going to say that's my favourite too.
It's a combination of puzzle and. Stress. And stress. [laugh]like that perfection game
we're yet to do something in the limit
Like that Perfection game where you have to do something in a limit time
before the timer gives up. So it's
really cool. Yeah.
Like at the beginning of the
round it gives you instructions. Each
round has one more instruction.
It says 'activate all of the orange
switches'.
Like most people would be like 'oh that would be easy. I can just do all that'.
But you have to remember them in the specific order they were given to you in.
See and then once you do that you get to
the next round. So this is round two.
Enter the sequence 475 on keypad number one.
Disconnect all the red wires or
shouldn't I so yeah actually how do you
So, yeah, now that you've mentioned it, it's a combination of like Perfection
doing something under the stress of time
and like Simon
because it is... they give you a set of
instructions and you have to complete
those instructions in that order.
So now on to level three. Activate all the yellow switches. Activate all the blue switches.
Activate all the number one switches. So
yellow, blue, number one.
And you have to you know turn the whole device to find all the different triggers.
I like how the music speeds up and the
pressure's on. And then after it blows
up it turns into this. Ah!
So that was a brief demo of the Merge Cube.
As you saw from this demo you can kind of play with some of the games and models with just
the Merge Cube and your phone and the
apps. You can also enhance some of those
experiences by using the goggles that
allow you to do either VR our augmented
reality as well. Hopefully we'll get a
chance to play with some of those and
show you but that's like. Talking about
is like yeah that's kind of cool but
then we need to use it it really is cool.
I don't know if the video gives that impression.
Although you could probably do a similar
game where you are given a task to
complete in a certain manner to solve a
problem. Puzzle games are not unusual.
Puzzle apps aren't unusual. But the added
idea of rotating the cube and trying to
remember like that whole orientation of
okay this is the panel 1 and I gotta get
to panel 3 and then wait ...  like
that adds a whole other aspect of the
game It just really feels more involved
versus a flat screen which I thought was
really cool. Yeah. And then some of the
models. I've seen one with the solar
system. You can get really
close up into some of the planets and
then further away to see the solar
system. And those are only a few of
the apps. So the Merge Things apps free
and has a handful of some of those
models and games so a great sort of app
to get with the cube and the cube here I
think in Canada is less than $30. Which
is really comparable to as if you're
gonna get a video game for the kids. So
I was really impressed with the cube.
As always you can find me here on Fridays
talking about family activities or
things to do with the family such as
video games, apps, that sort of thing. But
I'm also here talking books for kids,
family travel, mom confessions. If you
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Click here!. Until next time, ciao. Ciao. Ciao. Ciao.
