Galaxia AR

Galaxia AR – Game Review (iOS)

Galaxia AR is probably one of those games that might showcase a wrong way to make an AR game. One of the most exciting things about AR is the seamless blending of the virtual and the real world. So why the developer has decided to ignore such a fundamental design principle?

That’s not how you develop a Good AR Game?

Galaxia AR game screenshotGalaxia AR brings the popular Space Invaders arcade game in an augmented reality form.  I’ve already had a chance to try out a similar game called Alien Invaders AR. However, unlike Galaxia AR, Alien Invaders AR actually made some good design decision and the game was engaging and fun to play in AR.

The main issue that I had with Galaxia AR is that the developer has “boxified” the gameplay area within a visible rectangular container. Even without the rectangular gameplay area being visible, the game itself plays only along the X and Y-axis.  This leads to a flat and boring AR gameplay experience.

It’s like having a second screen that I view the game through. I personally prefer just playing it straight on-screen and not in AR.

If you compare it to Alien Invaders AR, you can see that unlike Galaxia AR, that enemies appear like they are part of the real world, like they exist in your room, not within a second screen. The character moves within the 3D space, both in the X, Y, and Z-axis, The developers of Alien Invaders made a smart choice and turned it into a first-person shooter. By doing so, the player was required to physically move to avoid getting hit by enemy’s projectiles.

Now, I do respect the decision to stay loyal to the classic. Having said that, when you bring a classic game and try to reimagine it in a new medium, you need to apply some game design changes to make it worthwhile playing it as such, not just making a direct port.

There are many Space Invaders fans out there that would have loved seeing different versions of Space Invaders reimagined in Augmented Reality. I remember the same thing with AR-Man, an augmented reality version of Pac Man. That gameplay video that I made playing that game have already crossed 250K views mark. This is because there are so many Pac Man players that always search to see, read and hear any news regarding their favorite arcade game. Although I assume that Pac Man is more popular than Space Invaders, there is still a large audience that will enjoy playing an AR variation of their favorite arcade game.

Now that Pac Man AR game was designed from the ground up to be played in AR and in the first-person perspective. Yes, this game had quite a few problems, but it was exciting seeing and playing an AR version of Pac Man in that fashion.

This design is a big mistake in my opinion. It’s like giving a VR player to play a game with the game being played on a plane surface in front of him.

Galaxia AR also has many other issues, like annoying game placement initialization, and bad UI design. The game felt like a developer took the same game that was developers 30 years ago and just placed it inside a canvas container and port the controls to match those of a mobile game and that’s it.

Conclusion

If you are a Space Invaders fan, I recommend skipping this game and trying out Alien Invaders instead. I’ve played Alien Invaders and found it fun and challenging.

The one thing that I liked is that when I’ve played Galaxia AR, it did bring some childhood memories of the classic. Between us, there are so many creative and more interesting and exciting ways to reimagine Space Invaders in AR. Even if the developer decides to stay loyal to the classic, still, there are plenty of ways to make it so and still make the game fun to play in AR.

For example, making the ship (maybe not as a ship, but as a land vehicle) move on the floor in the 3D space and shooting layers of aliens floating on top of it. I’m just throwing an idea straight from my head and seeing how it plays in my mind, I already see that it would be so much more interesting and entertaining to play than this uninspiring AR version of Space Invaders.

Having said all that, if you love the classic game, and you feel like you want to unite with those nostalgic childhood memories or you are a fan of the game, you might want to give it a shot.

You can download Galaxia AR from the App Store here.