King of the Court has the ingredients of a deeply engaging game:  a free-to-play casual mechanic that anyone feels compelled to play (shooting hoops to become king of the court), a deeper strategy level that draws you in (protect and extend your kingdom by carefully managing your resources), social rivalry that gets under your skin (schooling your friends and foes in daily competitions), all wrapped up in one of the world’s most favorite sport franchise – the NBA.

Players attest that what makes this game an inseparable part of their everyday life is the fact that the virtual courts are located in their real neighborhoods: at their office, their grocery store, their bank, and that isolated shady bar they can’t really remember how they got there. When the courts are an integral part of your daily routine, the game feels more real. Or like the McNuggets (sadly) unforgettable commercial says: “slams are even dunkier.”

When an alert pops up on your phone, announcing that your treasured and highly customized home court has been attacked (see mine in this post), it gets pretty visceral and hard to remain on the sidelines.

Ogmento quietly launched King of the Court 10 days ago and already tens of thousands of players all over the world can’t get enough of it. That’s why I’d like to share with you a sneak preview of the new update that will take the game to the next level:

• Royal Courts! – Climb the royal ranks and face off against players worldwide to become King of the World!

• Customize your player – Pick your favorite NBA team jersey as your avatar or use your Facebook photo!

• Bigger and Better Leaderboards! Ranking with fans of individual teams and royal court rankings

• Recruitment Bonuses! Get more Basketballs when inviting friends to play!

• Extra Holiday cheer!

Now, here’s an invaluable and timely tip exclusively for Games Alfresco readers: when the NBA season starts (finally!) on Christmas day with much fanfare about the game, the tide of players will rise and the stakes will get much higher. So to stay on top and ride the wave all the way to the finals, grab your local courts today, land the highest score by any means necessary (99 cents can get your pretty far), and promptly fortify them with killer defense power ups. By the time the tide comes rushing in you’ll be riding the wave, collecting royalties for your courts and asserting yourself as THE unassailable king. Rule the courts! Rule the world!

Are you taking control of your neighborhood yet?

Share with us your experience on facebook and twitter.

But it’s probably a fake, uploaded to youtube by a user who has joined the video sharing site just yesterday, and have managed to upload leaked videos of Mario Galaxy DS and Star Craft 2. The F word at the end of the clip above is also a telling clue. But, an AR fan can be hopeful, no?As a bonus, in case this really turns out to be a fake, here’s how an AR version Metal Slug should look like:

• Aurasma took DEMO by a storm, winning both DEMOgod and people’s choice award, a $1M prize (not in cash), and showcasing their new gesture feature. Congrats!
• New Scientist reports on a mobile app that harnesses machine vision to detect crosswalks and help the blind safely cross streets.
• Not one but two augmented fitting rooms – one in China that helps you find the perfect wedding dress, the other from Russia, that neatly tracks your joints.
• Business Insider on the three issues augmented reality has to resolve in order to become the next big thing. No surprises there, but isn’t AR already the next big thing, and it should rather try to become the current big thing?
• Par-Tee – care for some augmented reality golf game?

It seems that I have never posted here about Greg Tran’s work on augmented architecture. Which is a pity. I had the following video opened as a tab in my browser for a long time, just waiting to be published, and somehow I forgot about it. Luckily, Yanko Design posted another video of Tran’s work, which served as a necessary reminder:

Mediating Mediums – The Digital 3d from Greg Tran on Vimeo.

Have an excellent week!

• Change your perspective with MirrorMap – an augmented reality application that lets you tap to near by CCTV cameras. I think they had a similar thing in Rainbows End.
• Interesting case study from Zugara on the ROI of e-commerce AR software: uniques up 841%, conversion rate rose by 4.2%!
• What AR can learn from the days of early cinema and the fine line between magical and gimmicky by Helen Papagiannis.
• Chauncey is the guy to follow on YouTube, here he is demoing his very own AR helmet. In other videos you can see him reviewing Vuzix gear.
• A revealing interview with Dr. Marco Feuerstein of TU Munich about AR surgery, and why it’s still not a viable option.
• Speaking of interviews, Toby held one about augmented reality for cultural institutions.
• Augmented Planet on AR and NFC. The wave of the future?
• A sneak peek to Layar Vision’s analytics tool

This week’s video comes to us via Etsuji Kameyama’s blog. I often complained about not having the AR equivalent of Angry Birds (ARAB). Well, we are not there yet, but Junaio now features a channel with the boids, enabling users to take picture with them. Even though it’s a wholly new media, still nobody likes the boomerang bird.

 Have a great week!

• Comparing the performance of AR frameworks (such as Qualcomm’s AR SDK, Samsung SARI, etc.) using a given set of tests.
• Comparing the performance of devices using a given set of AR tests.

picture source

More information can be found on Baauw’s site, Local Androids.

Watching the above video, it seems that some people get high on leaves.

More details can be found on Iaconesi’s site.