I've been a bit standoffish when it comes to building AR games. I don't know what it is, but I just haven't found myself drawn to them yet... until I played your game. It really can bring out so many fun new aspects to XR that VR can't capture.
Your intro and scene setup/tutorial are smooth and straightforward. Zero confusion outside of getting my room properly setup with a good enough scan, but I don't think there is any avoiding those technical difficulties anymore than you have with this game.
Your environment breaking with the Mixed Reality walls looks clean and your humor with it all breaking apart works! The robot floating around remains in focus, but is also not overly intrusive, which is great!
Having the lights turn off and then having a headlamp turn on to spiders everywhere is probably my favorite highlight of the experience. The entire game keeps bringing you further into the experience and this finale really submerges you into the deep end.
Some notes (really nitpicking because everything was great)
- Mosquitos could have used some animations just to give them a little more life
- I was able to smack the robot, but I didn't notice much interaction with him outside of physically moving him a bit.
You're a master craftsman Ian! I really appreciate you joining this jam and giving us this submission. It helps inspire me and others to what can be done in the XR space. Cheers! Hope to see you for the Halloween Jam!
Viewing post in Camp Panic! MR jam comments
Thanks Mr. Shrimp, much appreciate the feedback. I really enjoyed making this and I’ve enjoying doing a Jam again (although it can be intense!)
Going mixed reality was a bit of a gamble to be honest, it never screenshots well and it does put people off. I know a lot of MR experiences never feel real and it’s all still a ‘bit of a novelty’. However, I think that’s mainly because MR is usually a last minute bolt-on to most games and due to the limitations, the virtual objects never look real enough to be convincing so breaks the whole experience.
Underneath all that I do feel that the MR tech is capable of so much more than we’ve seen so far and it can be pushed further… and I hoped to demonstrate that with Camp Panic
Like others on the Jam time was tight, I only had about.4 days free to put it together (hence the non-animating mosquitos, crappy camp fire etc) but I did use my MR base framework I’ve been building for a while and built the content on top.
Looks like everyone wants the smack the robot - lol! I didn’t even think of that, so I’ll probably make an update with that in, just for a laugh. I did like how that whole robot character worked out in MR, so he’ll probably make an appearance in something in the future.
Thanks for hosting the Jam and getting the whole VR crew onboard - it’s been ages since there’s been a proper VR jam! Hope to see you for the Halloween Jam, but time is going to be tight (again!).