Gaze

Gaze is a sculpture, but also a speed and observation game in which the players have to find anamorphoses printed on the surface of the sculpture. Using the camera of their smartphones the players have to find the correct position and angle to reconstitute the anamorphosis they are looking for, in order to take a picture of it and validate it. When a player validates an anamorphosis he gains score, the player with with most score wins.

Gaze is part of an underexplored breed of board games that fuse both digital and physical elements. On one hand Gaze is played with a board, in which anamorphic shapes are printed. In the other hand Gaze uses a phone as the main means of interaction between the players and the anamorphoses. The principal feature used is the camera of the phone, the players have to use it to take pictures of the anamorphoses once they have found the correct point of view from which they are reconstructed. With regard to the board the players never touch it during the match, as if it were a piece exposed in a museum, a sculpture, but at the same time it remains the main surface of play. The combination of this two points create a gameplay dynamic that is untranslatable neither by only the digital or only the physical. Anamorphoses have been widely used in art and games, however, they have never met in such a way that the players can interact with anamorphosis in a physical context through a video game. The result of this meeting is some sort of digital twister in which the players playfully jostle in order to find the anamorphosis and get their phone in the correct position and angle to take the picture that will make them score.