WorkAbout
AR / Prototyping / UX
AR Barcade
Unity Prototype
Role /
Interaction Design, Technologist
Team /
Personal Project
Timeline /
2022 - 3 Weeks

01. About

Since the early days of arcades, beer and video games have long been companions 🍻. This project explores what happens when the humble beer can becomes a video game.

AR Barcade is a concept for interactive beverage packaging enabled by augmented reality. Games play out on the surface of the can and players control the game by manipulating the can in physical space. This project was a chance for me to learn more about building AR applications and practice an iterative design/build process.

Could augmented reality allow a beverage can's label to be played like an arcade game?

The origins of this project were around designing a video game themed beer label. This exploration sparked the idea of a "playable label" by digitally wrapping a 2D game around the can and using the can's rotation as the controller.

02. The Prototype

Players rotate the can to move and use the UI button to jump.

I built a functional proof-of-concept prototype in Unity. When designing for AR and unique interactions of this variety, sometimes you just have to build it to understand how the interaction and gameplay will feel.

03. How It's Built

2D game in a 3D world

Here you can see how the 2D portion of the unity scene is set up. The actual platformer game is constructed in 2D with an orthographic camera capturing the gameplay. Out of view, there is the 3D cylinder that's position and rotation become fixed to the can when it is recognized as the AR target. The view of the game is fed into the shader for the cylinder allowing it to appear as an augmented label.

04. Game Details

Environment moves and the character moves to keep up.

The player does not directly control the character, rather they move the world left and right by rotating the can. The game-character is programmed to move to try and maintain its position centered in the view of the camera.

Handling a mid-game loss of AR target.

At times the app may lose its lock on the can’s target label. To prevent this from ruining the player’s game. We freeze the GameObjects in their last position when the target is lost and put the game in a pause state until the target is recognized and the player chooses to resume. 

05. Going Forward

Next steps for the project.

● Prototype “Tutorial Level” how to teach the player how to play using the initial gameplay. 
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● Explore different game mechanics. Enemy’s, Timed, Collecting Coins, Furthest Distance, etc.
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â—Ź Explore game types other than platformers. How can we use other physical movements of the can to control the game?

Back To Work

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All media Copyright © 2022 Feild Craddock. Do not use without permission. All rights reserved.
All media Copyright © 2022 Feild Craddock.
Do not use without permission. All rights reserved.