Header Banner
Next Reality Logo
Next Reality
Augmented & Mixed Reality News, Rumors & Dev Guides
nextreality.mark.png
Apple Snap AR Business Google Instagram | Facebook NFT HoloLens Magic Leap Hands-On Smartphone AR The Future of AR Next Reality 30 AR Glossary ARKit Dev 101 What Is AR? Mixed Reality HoloLens Dev 101 Augmented Reality Hololens How-Tos HoloLens v. Magic Leap v. Meta 2 VR v. AR v. MR

This Snap Spectacles Game Lets You Grow a Digital Pet in Augmented Reality

Aug 26, 2021 09:29 PM
Aug 26, 2021 09:49 PM
Young man wearing sunglasses and a hoodie, smiling in a room with framed artwork.

While the rest of Big Tech is still moving relatively slowly on augmented reality smartglasses, Snap continues to supercharge its own experimental AR wearable called Spectacles.

The latest demonstration comes from a small game production studio called WabiSabi.

Don't Miss: Snapchat's Latest Augmented Reality Lens Turns Celebrities into Lip-Syncing Pop Stars

Led by developer and co-founder Anwar Noriega, who is based in Mexico City, Mexico, working with a team in Los Angeles and Tokyo, WabiSabi has spent the last several years developing innovative mobile games for major clients like Fanta, Coca-Cola, and many others.

The team's Spectacles-based game is called Rocket Cat. The AR-based game gives you a virtual cat that you can feed and play with as it grows over time. However, unlike similar game dynamics, such as the classic Tamagotchi digital pet, because the Rocket Cat lives in AR, the human-to-pet interaction is a lot more interactive.

"The main objective of the experience is to create this bond between you and your pet as in real life," says Noriega, in the game's demo video. "The pet grows, the pet gets hungry, the pet wants to play with you. So it's a perfect companion to experience this augmented world on top of the reality that you are living in."

A person wearing smart glasses works on a computer with 3D modeling software.

The WabiSabi team working in Lens Studio

And while WabSabi is an experienced professional game studio, the team actually developed the game experience in Lens Studio, the software platform from Snap designed to make creating AR experiences easy even for non-developers.

"Lens Studio is basically the best AR framework out there," says Noriega. "It's the most accessible one, the easiest to deploy, the one that has the best tools, and the most optimized for all types of phones and devices. And [it's the] most useful for game development."

Although a wide array of AR developers and digital creators have been given access to Spectacles, it turns out that WabiSabi is part of the Snap extended family. The game studio was accepted into Snap's Yellow accelerator program last year, along with a small group of companies working in the digital innovation space.

So far, the Rocket Cat game isn't available on WabiSabi's Snapchat profile page, but as an early sample of what AR smartglasses gaming will be like via Spectacles, the team's demo is impressive.

Cover image via Snap/YouTube

You already know how to use your phone. With Gadget Hacks' newsletter, we'll show you how to master it. Each week, we explore features, hidden tools, and advanced settings that give you more control over iOS and Android than most users even know exists.

Sign up for Gadget Hacks Weekly and start unlocking your phone's full potential.

Related Articles

Comments

No Comments Exist

Be the first, drop a comment!