Living Orb

Living Orb is a tangible game console, with which you can easily create your own enlightened games.

The device is an sphere covered by LEDs. It's like its surface is the screen! And you only control it by rotating it, that's all. This allows for unique games!

Because both hardware and software are open-source, here we explain how to

• construct your own Living Orb;
• design a funny game adapted to the device;
• develop the game with Lua;
• share your game with others.

Construct your own Living Orb

The devices includes an accelerometer, a digital compass, and a gyroscope. Therefore it becomes aware of its rotation.

It produces light with LEDs driven by a mini-computer: Raspberry Pi, Arduino...

Its structure can be a polystyrene sphere,it can also be 3D-printed, or assembled with laser-cut boards.

On the wiki, you'll find a multitude of designs already tested, the equipments needed for the fabrication, and a lot of advices to support you.

So that you enjoy making it!

Invent new ways to play

The device, both a controller and a scren at the same time, invites you to create unique games.

Since it's a tangible object, there are new game mechanics to discover.

The lights are so beautiful to see, that the Living Orb can even serve as decoration, with no interactions.

Develop your games

It's very easy to program games using Lua!

The following code turns on a random LED in white:

-- Initialize the random generator.
math.randomseed(os.time())

-- Pick a random LED.
led = math.random(Count)

-- Set as white.
function update()
	set_color(led, 1, 1, 1)
end
				

There is also a simulator to test the games in your browser. This will boost your creation process.

Share your art and knowledge

Living orb becomes what you decide to do with. Feel free to customize it as you wish. You can then share your creation to the community!

Share also your games. On the game repository, creators exchange their games and collect new ideas.

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