Media Lab Europe’s project Breakout for Two aims at building a sense of community over a distance, without email nor instant messengers, but with real balls, sweat, a wall and exertion.

Breakout for Two is a game that blends football (aka soccer), tennis, and the video game Breakout. Participants in remote locations throw or kick a ball at a real wall to make its blocks disappear for both players, revealing more of the video-conference screen. The blocks on each player’s screen are connected over the network– when one player breaks through a block, the same block disappears from the other player’s screen. The player who breaks through the most blocks wins.

Media Lab Europe conducted a study to see if this “exertion interface” makes the interaction more socially bonding. It turned out that the players became better friends in comparison to a control group playing an analogous game using a traditional non-exertion keyboard interface.