A Magical AR Pet
Meet AR Dragon, Your New Pet
I was looking for a new XR experience, something outside the usual realm of face filters and VR spaces. In the current times when we as humans are so isolated, we need ways to relieve stress and to emulate human connection. So I went out and searched the App Store for something just for that. I found an app that I thought would work as a sort of solution to this problem. AR Dragon is an app that virtually places a young dragon into your surroundings for you to interact with, take care of, and build a dragon lair for.
AR Dragon is published by PlaySlide, who has published other apps for companies like Warner Brothers, Disney, Pixar, and Nickelodeon. A majority of their work is aimed at a younger audience, and XR has been a focus for a handful of their apps. AR Robot, AR Dragon, and their Oculus game ZR: Zombie Riot is among their newer products.
Dragon’s First 10 Minutes Home
The introduction sequence to the app was incredibly simple. A few taps on a virtual egg and you hatch a dragon. What is neat about this app is that unlike other random generation based games, you have the ability to reroll for certain characteristics like the color of the dragon and the forehead gem. After rerolling for colors I liked and naming the dragon (I chose the name Porsche) and placed it into the environment. The interface is easy to understand and navigate, with indicators to determine the levels of happiness and hunger of your pet. You are also able to place furniture in the environment for your pet to interact with. What I found most impressive was the app’s ability to accurately produce shadows from the room’s light source. In the top right corner is the in-app currency, which pops up in the environment upon completion of the catch mini-game.
Who Is This Dragon For, Anyways?
I believe this app is absolutely targetted towards children, possibly younger teens (the rating is 4+ on the app store). The easily accessible UI, cartoonish art style, and simple gameplay are all notes that make it easy for those demographics to quickly grasp and enjoy the app. If this is the intended age group, I believe that the publisher hit the mark and was successful in their goal.
How To Implement Your AR Dragon
This AR experience is handheld, meant for platforms like the iPhone and iPad. As for the technologies it uses, I had to do a bit of research. This app was created with Apple’s augmented reality development platform for iOS mobile devices. I am unsure what version they used for the AR Dragon app. This was important to note, as Apple has an interesting grip on their app store and the technologies available for people to make apps.
How Does This Dragon Work?
As far as I could find, aside from Apple’s ARKit, the other technologies used in creating this app, unfortunately, remain unknown to me.
The Strengths of AR Dragon
I think this app has great appeal to children, and in the age of isolation, people who are in need of companionship any way they can get it. The UI is simple for children and easy on the mind for older users. The style is cartoonish and whimsical, which appeals to children greatly, while the character design is intentionally ‘cute’ and appealing to older users. The premise of this app is to simply have a virtual pet to take care of, and this app does that very well. The use of AR in this scenario adds to the ‘realness’ factor of the app, and makes it more immersive despite the fact that users are taking are of a mythical creature.
Could This Dragon Get Any Better?
As far as improvements go, I believe simple tweaks would serve the app well. I think the UI could be updated to better fit the whimsy of the app. I also believe that the interactions available to the user could be broadened into features like washing the pet and playing different games with the pet. Aside from those, I think the simplicity of AR Dragon suits its purpose well as is.
Update: S.L.A.M & Tracking Integration
AR Dragon integrating S.L.A.M. or tracking systems would be a great plus for this app. I would love to have my dragon sit on various surfaces and have it interact with different heights of flat surfaces with S.L.A.M. I think that if there was some sort of following mechanic or chase game then tracking would be a great addition to this app.
