itch.io

Yes, you can build that and submit it. I would advise making it similar to this sample project: https://www.8thwall.com/8thwall/botanical-blaster 

Hello, glad you were able to find the World Effects and Face Effects tutorial. For more information about Pro I'd recommend asking in our forums: https://forum.8thwall.com/

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Judges' Feedback

Nolen Tabner, Software Engineer:

Impressive VFX work utilizing the semantic channels but i'd love to see it more fleshed out into a complete experience. The current iteration felt more like a tech demo and little incomplete. Maybe even just something a simple as "trying on" different VFX, akin to how Snap has Lenses.

PatCat, Lightship Leader:

I quite like the shader work here and would love to learn to do this sort of thing myself! I liked the customisation of colours set up too. A nice small concept put together well for the mini-jam.

Judges' Feedback

Nolen Tabner, Software Engineer:

Love the execution with this template but would have really enjoyed seeing more variety in the gameplay. Perhaps location-specific (VPS) level design/enemies or use of semantic segmentation to generate unique items/enemies. Felt like a solid single player experience but not much in the way of pushing players to go outside or play together.

PatCat, Lightship Leader:

Uses new templates quite well and overall looks to play quite nicely! Quite a nice outcome for a mini-jam entry. It felt like this could be completed into a game people would actually buy from the App Store, especially if it grew to have dynamically generated levels, high scores... etc. Not a lot of actual "go out and play" mechanics though, you could play this from your living room just as nicely. Would be cool to include VPS locations or a way of dynamically changing the scene depending on what's nearby to encourage more exploration of the world.

Judges' Feedback

Nolen Tabner, Software Engineer:

It was a bit difficult to see what exactly was happening during the video, but the concept is interesting. Good potential to become something quite engaging if there was more variety in the actions and visuals. The idea of location-specific gameplay could go far with this project.

PatCat, Lightship Leader:

The general concept here is quite neat - dynamic level generation and such, but the video didn't quite show it to that extent? I think maybe one of the goblins seemed to die from an attack but the rest all just stuck around. Wasn't quite as intuitive to see and understand what was going on. The pulsing effect on the mesh worked nicely with it all though!

Judges' Feedback

Nolen Tabner, Software Engineer:

Very solid execution on a popular AR usecase. I'd love to see more characters and movesets. Would be a great candidate for multiplayer session, either using markers for colocalization or even utilizing VPS to colocalize and using image targets for cards.

PatCat, Lightship Leader:

The concept here is something I've heard a lot of developers consider building - so it's nice to see a group that actually took the time to explore this further. I like that they worked around limitations they found with the image recognition to be able to recognise more images, and I like that they have a whole battle system already built in that is pretty clear to understand despite doing this all in one mini-jam. Quite impressive!

You can definitely work in teams!

Judges' Comments

Evie Powell, Niantic Staff Software Engineer:
"This is really cute! I love how it engages non players in an interesting way thats not too invasive on the passersby. Its a fun game that reminds me of the childhood games I would play where I'd count how many people stepped on the sidewalk cracks. I think kids will love it. Fits very well with the theme. I imagine a scoreboard, or some type of deeper gameplay in this games future. Or a game where you have to protect little characters trying to cross the area from the kicks of non players. There are a ton of possibilities here to make it more interactive. Or leaving it as a toy with more effects could possibly be interesting as well! Great job!"

Diego Aguirre, Lightship Leader:
"Amazing approach, I need to say it looks fun. I have a few thoughts I want to share. The projects are super good, I could see how you made use of AR to augmente the world by putting people in the center of the experience! It would have been nice if the people could engage more with the app rather than be just passive actors, they could be more active actors in a sense of making them aware of the things they are doing in the AR experience. I loved how people were able to kick the ball and also the shaders on top of the segmentation. Overall this is a beautiful, fun and interesting project, really well made. Many details like the music from the sfx when spawning the soccer ball and also the pop sound once the ball was clicked, made the experience more artistic, beautiful and also we could see the love and care into those subtle details. I think there was an innovation here, of not only using segmentation but also making a new way to have a foot collider that would allow the people to kick the ball, that was a nice detail! Great work! From the technical side, Sometimes it is tricky to combine the different capabilities but you nail it like a pro! Especially when creating something new, we often need to find creative ways to manifest the creative vision we have. I believe here the foot tracking / collider was a nice touch, I'm not sure how it was achieved but it works really well into the game mechanics. Prototyping and combining visuals with capabilities is sometimes a buggy road. Be aware that innovating always comes with the risk of failing. If you ever wondered how to create what you envision but don't know how. I would advise asking in the community. I wish you a great journey of passing from prototype to published app. I think that with more hours invested into this project you could have a pretty fun, engaging and awesome app! Keep it up, this prototype looks amazing! I love this project but it was still missing something to have everything to be the winner. Goods: Innovation in terms of foot tracking. Cons: People were the center of the experience but not in a meaningful way, people weren't aware they were part of the AR experience."

Judges' Comments

Evie Powell, Niantic Staff Software Engineer:

"Wow! This is so cool! I love how you are thinking about how to turn this into public installments! It also creates a bridge for non players to see what people are doing and makes it more likely to jump in! I'd love to see this out at a public VPS point! I'd consider doing both a street disco with audio speakers (in an appropriate installment location of course) and then try it as a silent disco! where people can enjoy the music with their headphones but still have the projected view. I'd be curious to see which installment gets the most traction and interest!"

Diego Aguirre, Lightship Leader:
"Amazing approach on putting the people on the center of the experience. It's an engaging concept to bring. I believe that leads to people having a nice time together creating, dancing, and having fun. The goal of the app and the execution I think really hits the point of the Jam. Great work! Super interesting approach on the technical side! Only the most brave lightshippers go into the adventure of exploring remixing different capabilities.On the technical side to be honest, it's a pretty solid combination, especially if you see the project to be something to put people together. The depth estimation it's a really nice idea, also the hand tracking was something not too many developers would like to get into. From the ideation to the creation, I believe this is a great great example of how much you can do with ARDK. I can definitely see a pack expansion where to buy/ or gain different background visuals. If I would have to augment this amazing experience the only thing I would add would be after some time, giving the user something. Like after 5 minutes a UI of a reward shows up. And you unlock new visuals. These visuals could be color change or shape shift. Just to make the app more engaging, even like it is now, it is a masterpiece of ARt. Congratulations, good job again! I think you hit the point here! Even if the path is not clear now, In the future this could be an amazing app that maybe you could unlock in the real world. Perhaps you need to explore the city and find this experience for dancing, making people be together and for having fun! This could be an app that could have a lot of success with more tracks, more visuals and maybe more capabilities."

Feedback from Summer Gu, Niantic Product Manager:

"The app did a great job using VPS to allow anyone around the area to travel back in time and learn the hisstory by experiencing by themselves; it would be great if the app could also overlay the surroundings to match the historical style and make it even more emmersive, and also incorporate more learning experience to the user."

Feedback from PatCat, Lightship Leader:

"I like this as an initial start to the concept! Setting up VPS alongside the semantic segmentation is a nice pairing and I like the concept of teaching about historical events in the locations they happened. Especially because this is better than the common "portal" style ones that just show an image, because it shows 3D animations and such in the location instead. Nice!"

Feedback from Summer Gu, Niantic Product Manager:

"I like the concept of re-creating the moon-landing experience in AR, and allowing the user envision themselves on the moon; though it would be better if more information can be conveyed in the experience to the user to provide a better learning experience."

Feedback from PatCat, Lightship Leader:

"Curious use of semantic segmentation, I liked that looking up in the sky you could see the Earth! I felt like it would definitely be improved with some more context — some sort of visuals highlighting historical information, or pointing out significance of specific places on the moon's surface. Great prototype concept - would be a good one to explore more and develop further!"

Feedback from Summer Gu, Niantic Product Manager:

"This is a great example of how a game can be used to teach programming techniques. Very innovative, and great use of AR here as well! As you mentioned in the submission, it would be even better if the UI can be more user-friendly, but this is already very impressive."

Feedback from PatCat, Lightship Leader:

"I'm blown away by how complete this is for a mini jam entry! Very nicely done and built up nicely on Lightship tech. Always great to see new concepts for teaching programming. With improved UI, this would be great to release and get students playing around with."

Feedback from Summer Gu, Niantic Product Manager:

"The app is very informative and the model definitely helps teach the user different aspects of the skeletal system; it would be great if the app can interact better with the environment and the user to create a more immersive experience."

Feedback from PatCat, Lightship Leader:

"I quite liked the concept of blurring the background, that was a curious idea to keep focus on the skeleton. I also liked that the audio synced with what was shown and gave it a bit more personality. Would be good if you could interact with the skeleton more (move limbs around to get a closer look... etc) and have labels explaining things, but for a mini jam entry this is pretty great!"

Feedback from Summer Gu, Niantic Product Manager:

"This is an app that exemplifies "learning by doing" in teaching how to assemble a computer and providing information on each parts of a computer by allowing the user to assemble one in AR; it would be even better to add more user interactions to those computer parts, and give better visual cues on where they should be going so that the user can learn better."

Feedback from PatCat, Lightship Leader:

"I absolutely love this one because it makes things SO CLEAR when it comes to building a PC! Physically putting things in place and having them explained, but in an entirely safe virtual way is a great idea! Really nice for a mini-jam entry! It's a great use of hand tracking too."

Feedback from Summer Gu, Niantic Product Manager:
"I love how anatomy is taught by allowing the user to play around with the models in AR, and hand-tracking is a great fit for this use case; the information display could be more user-friendly and immersive, and I can totally see the app extending its narrative to be interacting with the surroundings better as well."

Feedback from PatCat, Lightship Leader:
"I very much like the detail in this and the fact that they used hand tracking. Great seeing people experiment with the new feature! There's definitely more fine tuning possible here exploring the UX but for a mini jam this is pretty feature complete! Definitely does well at being educational and I could see classrooms using this already in its current form."

Niantic Judge Feedback (Dan Atkins, Product Manager)

Love the idea of placing emojis in world space and taking pictures! One thing I'd explore a bit more is why placing emojis is better in AR than, say, as a 2D overlay on screen.

Lightship Leader Judge Feedback (Diego Aguirre)

I feel this could be the start of something great. I think this project in combination of VPS would be something really cool to see. Congratulations your project is amazing, you manage to use one of the last features and come up with a ver interesting concept. I do feel it would had better if this concept was polished, but for the mini jam this is great. I would suggest keep working on it and keep sharing the progress. I loved the idea of using emojis to express how do you feel, is really in tune with the theme!

Niantic Judge Feedback (Dan Atkins, Product Manager)

Great core concept! I love the idea of getting to follow a bee's path to show how it pollinates a flower. Only feedback is I'd love to see more of this -- showing a single bees journey and using AR to show the scale they work at.

Lightship Leader Judge Feedback (Diego Aguirre)

I feel bee's are such an important part of our planet. I feel this experience does bring good around us by sharing the important work, Bee's do. Regarding the technical aspect, I would suggest for the future to add some color to the box where Honey is stored. The particles and the animations where really well crafted. Seems like a project with many technical challenges but at the end it looks beautiful.  I do feel good and spreading awareness is key to understand the importance of bees in our world. Great work! Love it.

Niantic Judge Feedback (Dan Atkins)

Cool use of hand tracking and a neat idea to shoot fireworks from your hand! The slingshot mechanic may not be intuitive to many users and may want some iteration. Also would be interesting to explore using sky segmentation to have the fireworks appear in the sky rather than at ground level!

Lightship Leader Judge Feedback (Diego Aguirre)

I think the idea behind was good, but the execution for integrating the hand tracking was just great. Overall seeing fireworks and trow them doesn't make any good around us but keep us happy or it could help us celebrate. I do feel hand tracking was one of those features that are hard to find a good scenario where to use it. I must say I'm impressed about how the bomb with the fireworks goes away from the user, since I know you had some difficulties implementing this. For the future I would suggest keep pushing. This is a great starting point and using Hand tracking is never easy. So Congratulations for participating and using on of the newest features. To improve I would suggest, extending the functionality of the firework. Perhaps you could add a feature where you can write a message so when the person shots the firework, a nice beautiful message will come up from the explosions. I loved your project, keep it up! Great work!

Niantic Judge Feedback (Dan Atkins, Product Manager)

I love this idea of the paintbrush mechanic and using it to make urban environments more natural! Agree there's a lot of opportunities to do more here, especially play with height (plants grow from the spots you paint?) but super cool idea. Also the cardboard spray can is awesome.

Lightship Leader Judge Feedback (Diego Aguirre)

Nice demo video, nice video editing, nice work! I feel this is a great project that resonates with the Niantic's core values. For the technical aspect, I'm impressed because I know painting over the mesh might be something tricky, but Im glad for the result of this project. Also I dont know if the case around the phone was part of the experience but I really like how everything was well integrated to make the UX seamlessly and fun! Congrats on making this project looks so good!

Niantic Judge Feedback (Dan Atkins, Product Manager)

Using real world scale to illustrate the challenges of climate change is a great concept. One thing I'd like to see is more robustness around this idea. Can I see what my house would look like in Miami versus Denver in each of these scenarios? Are there other ways of illustrating this problem to show the impact? The water level alone is promising but feels like its missing something.

Lightship Leader Judge Feedback (Diego Aguirre)

This is one of my favorite samples for this mini Jam. The UX and UI seems are all designed around raising awareness. I think the storytelling was well presented, its all about make you aware. I do feel that for the next time it would be nice if some photos of places with the before and after could be showed while raising the water. This way you could connect with the places. Even do this might be tricky, it would help the user connect with the place to see the before and after. Great effort for the team for this short amount of time. This project is really in tune with the theme of this jam! Congratulations.

Niantic Judge Feedback (Dan Atkins, Product Manager)

Location-based quizzes are an interesting concept and have great potential for real world socializing/interaction. I would explore how to bring this concept more into AR, as right now it's mainly a 2D anchored UI and I don't understand how the minigames fit in.

Lightship Leader Judge Feedback (Diego Aguirre)

The project was well executed, I loved the UI and the UX of the app. Technical aspects to care on. IT does not fit 100% in the theme of doing good around us. But I do feel the project takes you outdoor to explore. Next time I would suggest keeping in mind the theme. I do feel the UI and UX were amazing crafted to take you outdoor to play, but I don't see how this does any good around us, rather to the player. Things to improve, I would suggest to improve the core concept of the game. Even do it seems fun, I would ask while developing, how many times would a player come back to the app to play this game. Great effort! Keep it pushing, I wish you good luck for the next time!

Demo video link here: