A few years ago, an LBS AR called Pokémon Go detonated players around the world, setting off a wave of LBS games. It is not an ordinary game, it is characterized by the player personally to a variety of outdoor environments, in order to collect supplies and capture elves, some people through this kind of game that requires a lot of exercise to socialize, some people use it to fitness. The user stickiness of the work is strong enough, the monthly active users have reached more than 100 million people, and continue to dominate the total sales of the App Store for many years.
It is understood that Pokémon Go has been 8 years since its release, during which developers, including Niantic, have launched a variety of games that combine IP and LBS AR, such as: Harry Potter: Wizarding League, Catan: World Explorer, Jurassic World Alive, Dragon Quest Walk and so on. Still, almost no LBS AR game can beat Pokémon Go.
Perhaps this situation is about to change, because Niantic recently announced a new LBS AR game "Peridot", its gameplay is more focused on AR interaction, using a variety of intelligent technologies of the Lightship platform, such as: semantic segmentation, real-time environment recognition, etc., which means that AR is no longer directly superimposed on 2D video, but more integrated with 3D physics scenes, so the sense of immersion and realism is strong enough.
The transformation of LBS AR games
In fact, whether it is Pokémon Go or the various LBS AR games mentioned above, their essence is actually to synchronize the game content with the geographical location information, AR is not the key gameplay, the use is more to take photos and share with friends, even if the AR mode is turned off, it is not wrong. This gameplay became a hit on Pokémon Go, but it didn't guarantee the success of other games of its kind. For example, Niantic's "Harry Potter: Wizarding United" and "Catan: World Explorer" were removed from the shelves not long after the player size was not large enough.
On the one hand, a large number of "LBS AR" games saturate the market, and players have many options. Such games do not make full use of ar technology integrated with physical space, no matter what kind of IP or storyline is put on, or the rules of gameplay are changed, it is still a soup change. On the other hand, repetitive gameplay gradually makes users lose interest, and people crave new and creative ways to play.
For Niantic, Peridot is a brand new attempt that will not only change the standard gameplay of LBS AR since Pokémon Go, but will also help Niantic test/demonstrate the capabilities of its AR development platform, Lightship. Although there are already some AR mini-games on the market that support natural occlusion and environmental recognition, there are no immersive AR games that really use LBS large-scale maps. Therefore, after the launch of Peridot, it is expected to change the situation of existing LBS AR games.
Niantic's technology accumulation
If AR promises to change the landscape of LBS gaming, Niantic is the company most likely to seize the opportunity. It has accumulated a large amount of AR technology over the years and collected a large amount of environmental data through the game client to optimize AR games. For example, on Pokémon Go, billions of environmental photos uploaded by players were collected.
In order to promote the development of the LBS AR game ecosystem, Niantic also launched the AR development platform Lightship, integrating its AR technology and providing it to other developers. It is reported that Lightship currently has several major functions, namely:
1) Spatial audio;
2) Real-time depth recognition and environment mapping: Create 3D meshes in the environment in real time, and analyze and understand the terrain and surfaces in the environment. During the operation of AR applications, the 3D mesh will continue to exist and support real-time updates;
3) Natural occlusion and physical simulation: AR content can naturally interact with the real environment;
4) Semantic segmentation: it can help the algorithm distinguish physical features such as terrain, sky, and architecture, and allow AR objects to move naturally in the physical environment;
5) Multi-person AR, positioning sharing: 8 people can be allowed to share the same AR content locally in real time.
In addition, Niantic is also developing a global scale 3D map, as well as a virtual positioning system (VPS) to achieve accurate and continuous LBS AR content development.
These functions will greatly enhance the interaction between AR and people and the environment, which will bring richer application scenarios for LBS AR games, especially in pet-owned games such as "Peridot", immersive, natural AR pets will look more vital, and they can also intelligently identify the surrounding environmental characteristics through the camera, like real animals.
While there's not much information about the game at the moment, some specific gameplay has been found online, and perhaps it can be seen which features it will adopt on The Lightship.
About Peridot
Just like pokémon Go originally promoted, Peridot's promo is also full of immersion, and AR virtual pets interact with physical space as if they were real. Unlike Pokémon Go, Peridot may be played more closely to what the trailer looks like, as the main content of the game may revolve around AR scenes.
Niantic said: "Peridot" is a camera-based AR game, its technology comes from Lightship ARDK, the experience is realistic enough, immersive. The little monster Dots in the game are smart enough to recognize the characteristics of the physical environment.
Simply put, Peridot is set up in a similar way to an electronic pet like Takuma Kaeko, with the slogan: "Always by your side." Players need to raise, care for, and breed a variety of colorful and strange creatures in the game. The main difference is that for the first time, you can keep virtual pet Dots in indoor and outdoor environments around you.
Dots can walk with you and interact with different objects and elements in your environment, such as hiding behind real objects such as trees or digging into real spaces where treasure is buried. You can interact with virtual pets and take pictures of them. In different geographical locations, they can obtain different foods, such as kelp in the water, beets in the sand, and so on.
Interestingly, Dots can grow up and release it to a specific geographic location, which will require persistent AR technology because you can always come back and look at it. When dots are released, they are paired with other players' released counterparts and lay eggs, and you can hatch new pets after you get new eggs. Dots are somewhat similar to Takuma Kako and also hatch from eggs. However, unlike Takuma Kaeko, dots will not die if they do not feed or log in to the game for several days in a row. If you can stick to daily check-ins, maybe you'll be given a login reward.
The main gameplay of the game is probably: incubating eggs, raising pets, releasing and pairing, and then incubating eggs again, repeatedly looping. By foraging, playing, and searching for hidden treasures with virtual pets, you can also earn XP experiences that can be used to unlock new skins.
It doesn't take long to raise Peridot, so you'll soon be able to continue breeding the next one. The key to engaging you with an ongoing experience is to collect different varieties of Dots. You can get the monster shape you want by repeatedly pairing (spawning random hybrids, and the offspring will inherit the characteristics of their parents) to unlock new monsters like never before. Or in special terrain, mutated varieties are also found, similar to the different colored varieties in Pokémon Go.
The game contains several types of small monsters (9 known so far), which have similar characteristics to animals such as rabbits, golden leopards, vacancies, and unicorns. These little monsters have different preferences for food and the environment, and they also have diverse abilities and personalities. Therefore, you may need to go to a variety of different terrains to forage for food.
Immersive virtual pets
Raising pets online (such as cloud-sucking cats, electronic pets, etc.) is obviously a happy thing to be able to interact with small animals and not have to take on the responsibility of raising and cleaning pets as in real life. At first glance, Peridot at first glance is nothing more than a combination of this electronic pet and Pokémon Go. However, to achieve excellent virtual and real fusion effects, it will require upgraded AR technology, which will be more complex than Pokémon Go, but also expected to bring more innovative LBS AR game formats.
Judging from Niantic's description, Peridot will blend with the game based on the environmental information captured by the camera, and if the effect is natural enough, then the effect of AR will look closer to reality. In addition to being able to identify specific terrain, it can also recognize common objects or geometries in the physical environment and render realistic occlusion and light shadows for Dots to make them look more vivid.
If this game can be played on the AR glasses developed by Niantic and Qualcomm, I believe the effect will be better, not only to liberate the player's hands, but also to feel more immersive and immersive.