If you’re in the Lower Mainland and you’re looking for something to do with the kids during spring break, you should check out Syncra, which is currently installed in the Croatian Cultural Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.

The space is dark, with projectors everywhere displaying graffiti-like images, lights flashing, and electronic dance music pulsing through speakers throughout the space.

What you soon realize is that the lights are strobing in conjunction with the music.

And you can interact with all of it.

Scattered in Syncra are boxes with levers and dials and switches, and you can use them to manipulate the entire experience. You can change the pitch or compression on the music or alter the colour or shape of the lights. There are a couple of areas where you can move around and sensors will detect your movement and translate it into digital images on screens.

There are illusions to see and games to play and a few places where you can immortalize yourself in a distorted image that you can download on a smartphone using a QR code that is generated after your picture is taken.

It’s a fun way to spend some time with the kids and I bet older kids are having even more fun here with their friends later in the evening. There’s a counter where you can buy food and drinks if you want to spend a longer time in the space.

Syncra is running until March 26. Get your tickets here.

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This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, Jurassic World Aftermath, Tentacular, Tetris Effect Connected VR, Thumper, Starfield’s new release date, Mario Day, International Women’s Day’s Embrace Equity campaign, and the new yellow iPhone 14.

Kirby is back with some friends, more PS VR2 games to enjoy, a release date for Starfield, and what even is Mario Day?

Returning to Kirby’s Return to Dreamland in a Deluxe edition on the Switch

Kirby continues to be one of my kids’ favourite video game characters. His ability to inhale objects – and enemies – and copy their abilities makes for super fun gaming.

One of the other things that made 2011’s Return to Dreamland fun was that it enabled up to four people can play together.

Not all characters have Kirby’s stellar ability, so you may have conflicts around who gets to play as the cute, pink monster, but being able to play the side-scrolling platformer as a group is worth the fights.

This deluxe edition, which brings the game to Nintendo’s Switch, remains fun because of the co-operative play. It also adds additional gameplay in the form of an epilogue, where players get to take on the guise of Magolor, the shifty antagonist from the game.

You can also get competitive with things, too, because there are ten mini-games, kind of like what you’d find in Mario Party, that you can play with your group of four.

Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe is a good excuse to get together with some friends.

PS VR2 games we played this week

Jurassic World Aftermath: You are on Isla Nublar. And the dinosaurs are loose.

Tentacular: A light-hearted family-friendly game in which you are an octopus, abandoned at birth and raised by a seaside village.

Tetris Effect Connected: Tetris, in VR, against opponents from around the world. Crazy times.

Thumper: Playing this rhythm game in VR made me feel like I was travelling through a wormhole.

Starfield launches on September 6

Bethesda Studios revealed today that it’s space exploration RPG will release on September 6, potentially delaying the start of school for many.

The game, which is exclusive to Windows and Xbox Series X/S, will be available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers. We’ll learn much more during an event to be broadcast on June 11.

Friday is Mario Day (Mar 10)

Congratulations to all who celebrate.

Women and girls are underrepresented in the tech world and we all need to work to change that. Plus, a new mellow yellow colour for iPhone 14.

International Women’s Day calls on us to #EmbraceEquity

Wednesday was a day to celebrate women but also to recognize that there’s still work that needs to be done to create true equity in our society.

On International Women’s Day 2023, UN Women, an organization set up by the United Nations to deliver programs and to define standards for women’s rights, issued a challenge for governments, activists, and the private sector to ‘power on’ in their efforts to shape a safer, more inclusive, and more equitable digital world for all..

Women and girls are underrepresented in the field of technology, whether referring to the creation of it or the use of it. And the problem of gender bias is another challenge.

Artificial intelligence (AI), for example, is inherently biased in large part because of the biased view of the people working in the area and the limited data sets that are used in the machine learning.

Get an iPhone 14 in yellow, just in time for spring

Apple announced this week that the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are being released in yellow. Prices start at CAN$1,099 and the new coloured handsets will be available next week (March 14; pre-orders open on Friday). You can trade in an older iPhone and also take advantage of interest-free financing.

This week on The Shift, Shane Hewitt and I talked about the Lightfall expansion to Destiny 2, Horizon Call of the Mountain, Pistol Whip, Gran Turismo 7 VR, a Mandalorian-themed Xbox prize, Samsung Galaxy Watch5’s new cycle tracking feature, and Tesla’s Investor Day.