Fight Like a Star Wars Jedi with Google's Crazy Chrome Experiment

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 16 Dec 2015

Google's Lightsaber Escape, a game inspired by Star Wars: The Force Awakens, turns your smartphone into a Jedi lightsaber. Armed with it, you must battle storm troopers on a Star Destroyer. It sounds awesome and, having tried it for myself, I can safely say that it is indeed awesome.

Keep reading to learn more about Lightsaber Escape and to read some more interesting news about Star Wars.

Play Lightsaber Escape in your browser

Lightsaber Escape builds up hype for Star Wars: The Force Awakens by letting you turn your smartphone into a lightsaber and by letting you wield that lightsaber to battle First Order storm troopers on a Star Destroyer. It’s part of Google’s collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm, just like the Google.com/StarWars website. Visit the website, choose the Light or the Dark side, and see Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome and other Google apps transform.




But I digress.

Getting back to Lightsaber Escape, there are two main things you need to know about it:
  1. It is Chrome Experiment – for the best experience, you are advised to use Chrome for Windows or Chrome for Mac. Did you know that there are more than 1,000 Chrome Experiments to choose from and that Google came up with an Android Experiments spin-off?
  2. It is a two screen experience – you will need a compatible smartphone and a computer to play the game. Your smartphone acts as your lightsaber, the computer presents the game. Like this.


The list of supported devices features the iPhone 5 through 6S and 6S+, the Nexus Galaxy S3 up to S6 and S6 Edge, the Galaxy Note 3 and 4, as well as the Moto G2. I’m sorry, but tablets are not supported.

For Lightsaber Escape to run smoothly, you need a computer with a 2GHz Intel Core i5 processor or better, 4GB of RAM or more, and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card or better. Your computer and your smartphone should be connected to the same WiFi network.

To start playing the game, visit the Lightsaber Escape website on your computer. On the website, you’ll see a link that you must open on your smartphone. Once your phone connects, you have to calibrate it (hold it vertically with both hands and press the Initiate button). When you’re done with all of that, you can start playing the Lightsaber Escape game.



If you have any problems connecting your phone and your computer, check out this FAQ.


Put a Star Wars lightsaber on your Facebook profile pic

This was recently posted by the official Star Wars Facebook page. It’s an invitation to “Awaken the Force within by adding Kylo Ren’s lightsaber to your profile picture."




Alternatively, you can use Facebook’s Game Face tool to place a lightsaber on your Facebook profile pic.




Block Star Wars: The Force Awakens spoilers

Everyone is talking about Star Wars: The Force Awakens – and that has a huge potential for spoilers. If you want to make sure you don’t run into any spoilers, then you need to know about two interesting extensions for Google’s Chrome web browser: Star Wars Spoiler Blocker (which I’ve previously mentioned in this 20+ Things You Should Know About Star Wars article) and Force Block.

Star Wars Spoiler Blocker – This extension blurs a page if 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' spoilers are detected.




Force Block – Block pages containing spoilers from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with smart pattern detection and a whitelist for false alarms.





The Force Awakens is a record-breaking release

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is going to open on Friday, December 18. Tickets for the movie’s opening day sold like hotcakes, breaking the record held by The Dark Knight Rises, who garnered about $25 million in advance sales.

The Force Awakens already made, are you ready for this, $100 million in advance ticket sales. Analysts say that The Force Awakens could make about $220 million during its opening weekend.


Watch the others Star Wars episodes before you see the new one


You might want to re-watch the Star Wars movies before you go see The Force Awakens. You can rewatch them in 4 different orders:
  1. Release order – watch the Star Wars movies in the order they were released. Start with Episodes 4, 5 and 6, the original trilogy, and then watch Episodes 1, 2 and 3, the prequel trilogy that shows us how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.
  2. Episode order – start with Episode 1: The Phantom Menace and make your way up to Episode 6: Return of the Jedi.
  3. Flashback order – watch Episodes 4 and 5 to get into Luke Skywalker’s story. Once Darth Vader reveals himself as Luke’s father, watch Episodes 1, 2 and 3 as a flashback that present’s Darth Vader’s story. And end it by watching Episode 6.
  4. Machete order – the same as Flashback, but you skip Episode 1. You won’t lose any relevant information because it’s reintroduced in Episode 2 and 3. You will lose Darth Maul, it’s true. But you’ll also lose Jar Jar Binks, so it all evens out.

Play a Star Wars game while you wait for The Force Awakens

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes has recently been released to Apple's App Store and Google Play. It is a free-to-play collectible character RPG with a lot to offer. Learn more about it here.





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