Today I went out yet again to see the Cherry Blossom behind the National Assembly building in Seoul, South Korea.
This place is known for its beautiful Cherry Blossom. There are many cherry trees circulating the entire area. They are planted on both sides of the pavement, so it’s an exciting experience just walking through it on the pavement.
Today was cloudy, but I wanted to take advantage every day that the cherry blossom is there, and it’s here only for a single week, then it’s gone until next year. There is also the Cherry Blossom Festival and overall, the Cherry Blossom is a must-see if you come to Seoul in early of April.
Yesterday I’ve received a tweet from Kings of Pool about a new update. In update 1.21.3 that was released on March 21st, Uken Studios added an option to play versus a robot AI character named “Scratch” in the augmented reality (AR) mode of the game. Of course, I wanted to thank back the developer for notifying me of the update and I’ve decided that it’s a nice gift to take the game and shoot some AR pictures and gameplay videos with some Cherry Blossom view in Seoul.
When you start the AR mode you get to play alone, but there is a little arrow icon on the right that brings up a window where you can choose to play against an AI.
I’ve already played Kings of Pool AR mode outdoors last year in the park. However, that time there wasn’t any AI opponent to play against and I remember really wanting to have this feature.
I really love this game and the AR mode is really good. Aside from some little jittering of the stick, it works flawlessly.
The moment I’ve heard about this new update, I knew I’m going to test outside, and what a better place to play it then in outdoors being surrounded by beautiful cherry tree blossom views.
I took out my iPad from the bag and immediately launched Kings of Pool. I’ve placed the table on the pavement and chosen to play versus AI.
I have to tell you, this “Scratch” robot is so adorable, it sneezes, laughs, get bored sometimes, claps, and do other fun stuff. those added reactions really improve the experience and I felt like there is someone playing with me and entertaining me.
Don’t look at Scratch like that, hs is a pro player. One time he actually cleared the entire table after missed the ball on the first try.
I had so much fun playing against Scratch. His emotive gestures are so funny. One time he missed a shot and he was looking straight back at me with a robotic sad face and it was so funny to watch. I know you want to see how Scratch looks when it misses a shot, here, check out this next image.
After we played some Kings of Pool AR mode under the beautiful cherry blossom trees we went to play more near the National Assembly building.
By the way, this is the place where “Scratch” aced me and cleared the table in one run—Respect!
Here is a gameplay footage of me playing against Scratch with beautiful cherry blossoms.
Well, it was definitely a great way to start the day. I enjoyed this update and I want to thank Uken Studios again for letting me know about it. This is one feature that I really wanted to have in AR, and Uken Studios did listen. Not just that they listened, they also made it really entertaining and fun to play.
I highly recommend checking the new update. If you love playing pool and love Augmented Reality, I’m sure you are going to love this new update.
Download Kings of Pool from the App Store for iOS here.