Today I am going to review the game My Very Hungry Caterpillar AR, a family-friendly children’s app based on the adorable little caterpillar that was first introduced to the world by Eric Carle 50 years ago. Since then, The Very Hungry Caterpillar has appeared in books, games and mobile apps. Children enjoy watching him eat and eventually changing to a beautiful butterfly. My niece has both the 40th-anniversary pop-up book and the Coloring Book and she just loves it.
The Very Hunger Caterpillar in Augmented Reality
Now kids all over the world have the opportunity to watch The Very Hungry Caterpillar brought to life in the real world in Augmented Reality (AR). This is in my opinion, the most exciting and engaging way to experience The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
StoryToyes Entertainment, the company behind many children’s favorite mobile apps, used Apple’s ARKit technology to bring this immensely favorite character to life in the real world. This is the first time you can actually get see this cute caterpillar hanging around in our own world.
Let’s check out some outdoors and indoors gameplay before we move on, shall we?
According to the developer, My Very Hungry Caterpillar AR was made to help develop nurturing skills and encourage a love of nature.
The game is a very intuitive and easy to use. A game that was designed to appeal to children of all ages. It was designed to be a very calming and comfortable experience, with beautifully illustrated scenes, charming musical effects, and captivating soundtrack.
Our AR Experience, Mine and Lia’s
The moment I’ve downloaded the game, I knew that I had to experience it in an outdoor environment first. Usually, I try games in the comfort of my home. However, when I’ve read about the game and saw some screenshots,I knew that the best way to experience it is in a natural organic environment. I called my friend and told him to come visit and bring his daughter Lia with him—I promised her a big surprise!
Both of us went to the yard just below the house and then I launched the app. Both of us were looking at my iPad screen together. I moved the iPad so the game can find a place for the caterpillar to spawn and after a short moment, the magic happened. The adorable Hungry Caterpillar was right there in front of us. There were also some beautiful apple trees and a closed box lying there on the ground. This is the magic of AR. If it wasn’t for the large bezels of the iPad and the longer focal length of the camera’s lens, it would look even more like magic.
My friend’s daughter starts laughing from excitement and tried to pet the little caterpillar and he just looked at her straight in the eyes, probably his way of greeting her for the first time. he has such a cute little face. He actually reminds me how my cat looks at me when he wants attention.
Before I jump talking about the interactions in this beautifully-crafted children’s AR experience, let me talk a bit more about the augmented reality part of it.
The scene itself blends beautifully with any environment I tried to play the game on. I’ve tried playing it on the pavement, in the yard, on the grass, and inside the house, The 3D models aren’t realistic, yet they brought a charm to the place and made it more invigorating and colorful.
Everything just worked flawlessly in AR. The trees and the toy box, which I’ll talk about in a moment, all laid down really nicely on the surface. The 3D models have nice shadows so they seamlessly blended with the physical environment. I’ve seen some AR games that don’t use shadows which significantly impair AR experience, making it much less credible and immersive.
The game also allows you to change the position of the level. You just press the question mark icon and then the back icon and you can generate the level in a new place. If you switch between apps and get back to the game, the game will need to scan for a surface all over again. By the way, the game does remember your caterpillar’s progression, so when you spawn it again, it will continue from the last place. I know that because I respawn the game and after one meal and sleep session, the caterpillar transformed into a cocoon.
There was one time where the caterpillar just ran after the ball into a wall, but other than that, it was a flawless AR experience. Another issue that I had is that for some reason the projected video feed in darker than usual. It happened to me in the game “The Machines”. I don’t know if this game be tweaked or not. But all those issues are rather minor.
Gameplay & Player’s Interactions
Now let’s talk about what you can actually do in My Very Hungry Caterpillar AR.
After the caterpillar appears you have several simple interactions. The game was designed primarily for kids, therefore, the interactions are very simple and intuitive. My friend’s daughter immediately tapped the apples on the tree. Probably the deep red color caught her attention, but she is already familiar with My Very Hungry Caterpillar, and she knew that this little fellow loves eating—and a lot!
Tapping the fruits on the tree will make them fall down. Our adorable caterpillar will eat them right away. I really like how it is actually eating his way through the Apple and popping out from the other side. You can also tap on the ground to spawn more type of fruits like pears, oranges and if I am not mistaken, also blueberries.
After our little fellow finished eating he stared at us. We knew it’s a good time for him to sleep so we tapped the little tree trunk and he went there and fell asleep.
Lia told me that now it’s time to try out that secret box. She tapped on it and then we saw three different toys: a ladybug toy with a turn-key over its head, a soap bubble make and a colorful ball.
My Very Hungry Caterpillar interacts with each one differently. When you spawn the ladybug the caterpillar will run after it and play with it. It’s kind of reminds me what happens when my cat sees a bug on the floor or how he plays with the rat doll that I bought him a few days ago.
daughter When I put the ball, the caterpillar just ran a few meters after it, no kidding. The bubble maker has a really cool interaction, you can make bubbles by tapping on the screen or move around with the iPhone or iPadrealityand the game will automatically spawn new bubbles into the room. The caterpillar interacts with the bubbles, but you can blow them up yourself by tapping on them with your finger.
Sometimes I needed to aim the camera towards the fruit because the caterpillar didn’t go to grab fruits and continued to play with the toys like forever.
When you aim the camera up, you can see some butterflies flying above your head. I didn’t find about it only after My Very Hungry Caterpillar turned into a butterfly and flew to the sky, only then I’ve noticed that they were butterflies above us the whole time—it was a beautiful moment to behold, and both me and Lia really enjoyed it.
One time Lia wanted to see how many fruits we can create for the caterpillar, so she starts tapping on the screen like crazy. There is a cap, we couldn’t feel the entire screen with apples—I wish we could.
Having played the game like two hours straight, I do wish there was more content in it. I really wanted it to have a short story and some sort of small objectives. This is why it’s more an experience than an actual game. It would also be nice to have the option to grow a beautiful garden and a little water pool to make the world more colorful and lively. like in the original My Very Hungry Caterpillar (the non-AR version).
Conclusion
The beautify of this magical children’s AR experience lies in its simple and intuitive interaction. Kids who are already familiar with who My Very Hungry Caterpillar is will get to enjoy a completely new experience. Adults who grew up on it can recollect some of those beautiful childhood memories. It’s an interactive app that parents will enjoy playing with their kids.
I’ve played with my friend’s daugther because I really wanted to see her reaction, how she enjoyed the app. This is the first time she gets to play an augmented reality game, so it was even more exciting to see her reaction.
The thing that I remember the most is “Noooooo…again, again!”, the moment I told her that I need to go. As you can probably understand from this review, I really enjoyed playing it with her and watch her reactions, it made me happy. That moment that she said that words, I knew that StoryToys nailed this AR experience just right.
Please keep in mind that this Augmented Reality app requires an ARKit-enabled devices running Apple’s iOS 11 OS.
It’s amazing how such a simple AR game can have such a big impact on a kid. If you are a parent reading this and you have no what ‘My Very Hungry Caterpillar’ is all about, I have no doubts that your children will still enjoy the experience—Highly Recommended!