Mindracers has the typical two-player head-to-head mode, but there are also co-op challenges in the game, as Osmo found that kids actually preferred working together toward a common goal. For Osmo CEO Pramod Sharma, this is all fine, because the company wants to encourage experimentation and creative thinking. But it's still possible to mess with the system in other ways, like blocking your opponents' tokens with your own or even obscuring the camera entirely. Each disc has a unique pattern on it so they can only be used once per race kids can't keep picking them back up to reuse them, forcing them to be choosy with how they play. There's a bit of strategy in figuring out what to throw down and when. These red or blue discs are thrown onto the track throughout the race, with the ability to speed up your car or hinder the opponent. The velocity each vehicle reaches depends on a series of tokens each player gets. Additionally, if the players release their cars at the right time, they see a boost in the virtual race itself.īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. It's a little elaborate and even unnecessary, but it does add a bit of playful grandeur to the start of each race. When the buttons on each side are pushed, the cars are released onto the track, with the iPad camera scanning them as they zip by underneath into the tunnel. In the real world, Mindracers games will take place on a plastic base included with every set, which holds the iPad at one end and has two tracks for cars on the other. But rather than ask kids to simply push around a toy car in front of their iPad, Mindracers also borrows another staple from the Hot Wheels legacy: a plastic track. The idea is that the camera will recognize the cars placed in front of the camera and then put those exact vehicles onto virtual tracks representing popular flights of fantasy like under the sea and in space. The Osmo system's been used to teach words, shapes and even music, but Mindracers represents the company's first product built for play more than education. Osmo is best known for its line of learning toys that combine physical play and an iPad: A mirror is clipped at the top of a vertically propped iPad running the app, allowing it to see blocks and other toy shapes that are placed on the table below.

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