“When I were a lad…” as countless dads would begin, before spinning tired yarns about all manner of outdoor pursuits he enjoyed in his youth, flustered at why would anyone want to play a computer game while the sun is shining. It’s easy to appreciate the sentiment with age on one’s side but the cycle goes on, only this generation of young gamers are even more difficult to prize away from their screens.

HYBRIDPLAY is a new set of smartphone games aiming to get kids out of the house. By transforming the playground into a video game scenario, HYBRIDPLAY creates a novel intersection between digital video games and outdoor activities - an abstract take on the blurring of our on and offline worlds.

The system consists of two parts, the smart clip and the app. The sensor (powered by an Arduino micro-contoller) simply clips to any piece of playground equipment and has a built-in accelerometer and infra-red sensor that can detect the activities being performed. The app features a selection of classic games including Pacman and Pong. The games require kids to use the playground as a control interface, for example swinging in sync with the app in order to help a character collect pieces of a puzzle.

HYBRIDPLAY is an open source project so all hardware schematics, software and documentation will be available to anybody wanting to create their own games. The Hybrid Play team is still in the process of raising $140,000 via Indiegogo.