Edmonton game designer incorporates tech into new card game

Local game designer Ryan Stewart developed Katzenjammer, a card game that incorporates augmented reality. (Gates Guarin/CTV News Edmonton)

Local game designer Ryan Stewart was looking for a new way to share some laughs with his friends when he was developing a card game.

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“When I was in college, me and my buddies would always try to find crazy games to play or drinking games or anything like a social activity like Cards Against Humanity,” Stewart told CTV News Edmonton.

But as those lost their novelty, Stewart set out to create a game of his own, landing on the idea of being able to write prompts and challenges for others to attempt.

After a few years of development and playing among friends, Katzenjammer was created, but not without some futuristic tweaks.

“Originally the cards would fold open and you’d have to write dares in,” Stewart explained. “(but) you can only use these cards like three times before it’s just a mess, so we thought maybe AR would work.”

AR refers to augmented reality, a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, providing a composite view.

In Katzenjammer, AR hides the prompts on the cards and are only revealed when using the game’s phone app.

Mike McReady, associate dean of the school of media at NAIT says AR can be seen across many different industries already, including the trades, service work and transportation.

“If you’ve ever looked at Google Maps, it has the ability to overlay directional icons such as arrows and what not where you need to travel to,” said McReady, adding that gamers would also be familiar with the technology.

“Another way would also be in entertainment such as Pokemon Go, which would be probably one of the more common AR applications that we’ve seen.”

While we are seeing real world examples, McReady said it’s still tech that would be explored even further.

“AR is still a bit of a niche area, it hasn’t become ubiquitous in every aspect of our life, but I think the more use cases we see will be helpful,” said McReady.

Katzenjammer is one of those cases, and Stewart hopes to inspire the next game designer to create something they’re passionate about.

“The reason I made this game is because I wanted to play it and there wasn’t a game there, so I think if you’re working on a game, AR or not … Do you enjoy playing this game? I think that’s the most important part,” said Stewart.