OREANDA-NEWS. You are walking through your neighborhood park, about to finally catch that pesky chicken, when suddenly a giant robot appears. You flee from the behemoth, but you're too late; the robot squashes you underfoot! Such are the perils of Chicken Charge (http://www. chickencharge. com), an active augmented reality game that merges the real world with a virtual world in a unique way. As in Pokemon Go, you can see and hear virtual characters in a real world setting. But unlike that game, you can also physically walk around the virtual objects, seeing the 3D creatures from all angles. You walk in the real world, actively dodging virtual obstacles while chasing the elusive chickens within a virtual arena aligned with the real world.

The iOS version of this immersive experience was recently released by Virtex Apps, LLC, creators of active virtual experiences for mobile devices. The whimsical game involves walking around to catch virtual chickens while attempting to avoid ridiculous obstacles like 30-foot tall robots, herds of buffalo, and pianos that fall from the sky. "It's like being inside a life-size cartoon," says Jeff Green, the founder of Virtex Apps. "It's intended to be silly and fun, but it also demonstrates an entirely new way of playing a game or experiencing a virtual world."

The game was developed using the company's patent pending Virtex Framework, which handles the mechanics of establishing the virtual world and tracking a user within it. The framework is built on top of the Unity game engine, a popular development platform with millions of users. Developers can now create an entire 3D virtual world using the full power of Unity and then add the Virtex Framework to immerse their users within that virtual world. Green observes, "By integrating the Virtex Framework with Unity, our framework can be plugged in to many existing Unity creations, and we have access to a huge pool of experienced talent to help build entirely new virtual worlds." More details about the Virtex Framework are available in a story published on the Made With Unity website (https://madewith. unity. com/stories/worlds-are-colliding).

Green believes the potential for this kind of augmented experience goes beyond games. He foresees life-size educational scenarios in real world locations, virtual entertainment at sporting events and amusement parks, and even short interactive films in which you have a starring role. By using the Virtex Framework with Unity on smart phones and tablets, such experiences can work anywhere in the world on devices already owned by millions. Green says, "With the runaway success of Pokemon Go, it's clear that people are willing to get up off the couch for a unique mobile experience. So we're excited to have people see what is possible when they try Chicken Charge, and we look forward to exploring new ways of merging real and virtual worlds." By enabling users to physically walk within a virtual world, Chicken Charge may be, quite literally, the next step forward.