Live Butterflies is an augmented reality game featuring, yes you guess it right, butterflies. Live Butterflies features two modes, first one is an actual game where you need to capture butterflies flying around you by tapping on the screen. The goal of the game is to capture as many butterflies as possible before the time runs out. The game features a global leaderboard, so you can compare your score against other players who are playing the game from all around the world.
The second one is so-called “The Viewer”, which is a nice augmented reality experience where you can enjoy butterflies flying around you. If you touch the screen, one of those butterflies will get closer and land on your finger.
Liev Butterflies features the Monarch Butterfly, the Blue Morpho Butterfly, the Banded King Shoemaker Butterfly and the Orange Tip Butterfly. To be honest, I am not familiar with butterfly names, but these are really nice names. Names aside, these are really beautiful butterflies. The graphics and the animations don’t look ultra-realistic, but it’s not too simplistic either.
The thing is that there is not educational to this app because the name of the butterflies nor any extra information about them is shown within the app, only in the game’s description on the App Store. It would have been nice if there was an option to at least get some basic information about those butterflies featured in the app. It’s much better than just mentioning it in the game’s description, which is kind of useless.
I found Live Butterflies to also be a very relaxing experience, especially in the Viewer mode. The sound effects are really nice and draw a very calm and relaxing atmosphere. When I use it, I just felt how much this is missing in my life and I felt an urge to go out and enjoy nature.
Conclusion
Live Butterflies is a non-thrills AR experience. It’s probably one of the more relaxing AR apps that I’ve tried. I think that it can also be a nice Augmented Reality introductory app for kids. The game is very simple and accessible for kids. Tapping on butterflies rather than running after them is safer and I’m sure kids will enjoy that Viewer part even more.
Live Butterflies is available for download free on the App Store here.