A Slower Speed of Light - Relativistic Gaming

By Ben • education, games, science • 15 Apr 2013

If you've every wondered what it'd be like to travel near the speed, of light, the MIT Game Lab has a just the game for you:

A Slower Speed of Light- Poster

 

According to the official website:

A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game prototype in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. [...] Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing the challenge of gameplay. These effects [..] include the Doppler effect (red- and blue-shifting of visible light, and the shifting of infrared and ultraviolet light into the visible spectrum); the searchlight effect (increased brightness in the direction of travel); time dilation (differences in the perceived passage of time from the player and the outside world); Lorentz transformation (warping of space at near-light speeds); and the runtime effect (the ability to see objects as they were in the past, due to the travel time of light). [...] A Slower Speed of Light combines accessible gameplay and a fantasy setting with theoretical and computational physics research to deliver an engaging and pedagogically rich experience.

Here's a video explaining the game and showing some of the gameplay:

A Slower Speed of Light is free to download for Mac & Windows, though it did make my 2 year old laptop chug a little bit while running.

via Andy Rundquist

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