In ‘Night Terrors,’ The Call Is Coming From Inside YOUR House

When the 3DS arrived in 2011, it hit us with both barrels of half-assed AR, or augmented reality. You know the deal here: by means of some rather spangly cards and the system's camera, you could ‘project' characters or game elements into the real-world location the camera was pointed at.

It was fairly cool for all of three seconds, before you realised how rudimentary the included games were. But still, it was a thing. A little later, Sony's PS Vita launched with AR games of its own. They were just as limited, and failed equally in showing the kind of awesome this tech was capable of.

But now --well, in early 2016-- there's Night Terrors. This, right here, is what I always wanted from AR: a horror game featuring huge effing demon-things appearing in your own house.

Sure, cruising through the Spencer Mansion or the foggy streets of Silent Hill is scary enough. But these angry mothers jumping out at you from behind your toilet? Or your closet? No thanks. Nuts to that.

Natch, though, this isn't simple AR as we know it. There's some fancy-ass stuff going into this experience.

 ‘...the game understands where you're standing,' quoth Kotaku, ‘and actively uses that information to craft your experience. "The camera and microphone feeds are analysed and processed in real time," (the developers) note on Night Terror's Indiegogo page. "Photorealistic elements are added to the camera feed. Audio is spatialised, mixed with the microphone feed, and then routed to the headphones delivering an immersive binaural audio experience."

It's some technical stuff, as you can see from the game's funding page. But if that's all too complex and book-learnin' for you, just take a look at this early trailer instead.