Sword Experience is an art installation piece by Red Paper Heart studio, inspired by the HBO series, Game of Thrones. They were asked to convey Arya Stark's journey in becoming an assassin. To create the piece they created custom graphics engine, written in the C++ framework Cinder, blends both 2d and 3d visual elements which are then masked by the user's own photo. The final artwork is then uploaded to a server and available for sharing the moment a user steps off stage.
This interactive game really inspires me because it not only maintain a high artistic craftsmanship but also creates a world that remains true to the original story. As commercial interactive ins is becoming more and more popular, the criteria in the field should be more about what quality can we achieve from and what meaning can we assign to the interactive technology. This piece successfully tells a very poetic story through very simple interaction.