PDC 2008: The Surface Scavenger Hunt
The Microsoft Surface team has set up a cool little game here at the PDC developer’s conference.
It’s a scavenger hunt. The Surface crew has set up a number of its table-top computers with touch-sensitive screens around the convention center. Participants are given plastic business cards with a unique pattern on the bottom (it sort of looks like a ShotCode or an Aztec Code). You place the card on the Surface table, and up pops a ring of photo thumbnails. The object is to match the thumbnails around your card with the images on the table. When you spot a match, you drag or toss the photo over your card to add it.
Check out the video:
The corresponding photos are distributed among all of the stations, so you move from station to station, playing your card and collecting the photos until you have a full set. A filled card can be redeemed for a Surface t-shirt.
Video 2:
After watching for a bit, I learned a simple cheat. Rather than studying the photos and trying to discern which ones are matches, just put your card in a clear spot on the table and indiscriminately toss every available photo across your ring. The ones that match will stick automatically. There’s no penalty for mismatches, your ring just glows red for half a second. It’s all the shirt-getting goodness without the waste of brain power.
How To Cheat at the Surface Scavenger Hunt
There’s also an air hockey game that I tested, but either it wasn’t working properly or there was some odd bug in the software. Because I rule at air hockey and I found the Surface game pretty much unplayable.
If you want one of these fancy table-top Surface units, you can purchase one, along with an SDK, for $13,500.
