This Brainwave-Reading Game Gets Harder When You Lose Your Cool
You Need to Keep Calm to Win Ume.net's Latest 'Living With Lag' Game From Sweden
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Remember that fun Oculus Rift experiment that tricked a pair of ping pong players into seeing things three seconds later than they really happened? The stunt, created out of Swedish agency ANR BBDO was designed to remind broadband users how lucky they are to have fast service, courtesy of Ume.net. Now, the agency and provider are back with another fun demonstration of "Living With Lag," this time with a giant pong-like game designed to test the patience of those whose professions demand they keep a cool head.
A doctor, yoga instructor, midwife, crisis manager, bartender, combat diver, police inspector, fireman and even a priest were decked out with brainwave-reading headsets to track their stress levels as they played a hybrid video game that required them to bounce a digital ball off a hand-held beam. Unlike the typical game, however, the velocity of the ball was unpredictable because it was programmed to lag when players got stressed or worked up. So the object of the game was to keep calm, because if players didn't, the ball's movement would get a lot more difficult to predict.
The agency worked with B-Reel to produce the game and the film. The setup incorporated an Emotiv EPOC brain-reading headset, a Mio Fuse heart rate monitor and gyroscope sensor, which together measured players' heartrates and brainwaves to track excitement, engagement, frustration and boredom.
In the end, the fireman, priest and bartender proved to be the least prone to frustration, while the police inspector, midwife and yoga instructor did the worst at the game. But ultimately, the game showed that everyone would eventually lose it once lag set in. See everyone's scores below.
#1: Johan Törnqvist, Firefighter: 12145
#2: Gustav Jannerland, Pastor: 10267
#3: Mia Waldenstedt, Bartender: 10180
#4: Björn Johansson, Combat Diver: 9196
#5: Bruno Tollens, Waiter: 8069
#6: Shina Tamran, Doctor: 7071
#7: Ulla Hedström, Crisis Manager: 6120
#8: Göran Wirbing, Police Inspector: 5106
#9: Susanne Falck, Midwife: 3046
#10: Malin Fors, Yoga instructor: 2029