[Tolko] wanted to encourage kids to have some physical activity, but noted that they only wanted to play games. That led to BlobJump, a Raspberry Pi-based game sort of like the famous dinosaur runner game. The difference? Your body — or more precisely, a belt worn on your body — is the controller. Your jumping and ducking make your on-screen avatar do the same thing. Watch the video below to see the game in action.
Each belt contains an ESP32-C3, an MPU-6050, and enough rechargeable battery to make it all work. Everything is wireless, of course. We didn’t see any video of the actual kids, so we don’t know how active they were or whether they figured out they could just have a seat and move the belts in their hands. Even so, it looks like a fun game.
We couldn’t help but think that, beyond encouraging activity, this might be a great project to get a kid excited about building hardware and software. You could certainly do worse in that department.
This isn’t a totally new idea, but we liked the execution. If you are truly lazy, you can skip playing the game completely.
Cute demo
Whats up with the ai generated header image?
The game is a little weak, but the idea is a good one. My kid used to play Dance Dance Revolution and he was good at it. It generated a LOT of body movement. Later he was into Guitar Hero. Games that require you to move either large parts of your body or make detailed, controlled movements are great fun and probably better for you than games like GTA.