After playing many types of AR Games on my iPad I wanted to try to give you my opinion what game genres, in my opinion, are best played in AR?
I still think it is too early to tell because ARKit is still a new technology. However, Augmented Reality apps have been here for many years. ARKit just made it possible to create more engaging and immersive apps that look more authentic and really make the virtual content seamlessly blend with the real world.
I’ve been playing games in different genres, including puzzle games, virtual pet simulators, Real-time Strategy games (RTS), action multiplayer games, sports games, stealth games, strategy games, board and card games and educational games.
I found out the puzzle games worked really well in AR. There are several main reasons for that (just note that not every game will match all of those reasons):
- It’s a comfortable experience, people like playing casual games on mobile phones in their spare time.
- Many of them use the location of the user as part of the puzzle-solving experience
- Many of them don’t rush the player, allowing the player to enjoy observing the 3D environment (ARise is an excellent example of that).
- They provide a very interesting and engaging visual experience (AMON is a great example of that).
- They make us enjoy observation at your own pace.
As I said, not every puzzle game is the same. I really enjoyed playing ARKit puzzle games. I’m sure there is plenty of opportunities for innovation here and we haven’t seen the best of it yet.
Real-time Strategy games are also excellent for AR. It’s amazing to see 3D characters coming to life in your living room. I’ve especially enjoyed playing games like The Machines and HoloGrid: Monster Battle. You really feel more connected and immersed in the game when you see those 3D characters being part of your real world. It’s like they have taken a real physical and now they are part of your world. When I played HoloGrid: Monster Battle I really enjoyed seeing those amazingly detailed characters the real street as the background of the game. I like it even better when the 3D models take on an organic form because they seamlessly blend with the real world.
By the way, the same goes for Virtual Characters Simulator games in AR. One of the main reasons those games are so much fun in AR:
- The virtual characters are rendered within your world
- Users can interact with the character and if they are several characters, they can even interact with each other.
- The eye contact of the character really helps connect an emotional bond, it’s like the character is aware that you are there.
Multiplayer Games are probably the most exciting games to enjoy in AR. I love playing multiplayer regardless of the medium, whether it’s in VR or playing on a regular monitor or on my mobile phone. I enjoying knowing that the other player or players that I play with or against are actually real people.
This experience grows once you play it in AR because you can see a character in your living room (or wherever you play the game) that is controlled by another player somewhere who knows where in the world. A good example for that is when I played games like HoloGrid: Monster Battle and Twilight Pioneers: Dragon ARena.
It’s sometimes hard to explains the experience. You really have to try it yourself to comprehend it. Seeing gameplay videos isn’t enough because you really want to see the 3D scene as part of your own surroundings no someone else.
I do hope to see more videogame genres getting their own representation in augmented reality. There are some genres that didn’t yet work well for me like Sports, Stealth, Platform and classic board games. Some because they weren’t that exciting to play in AR or because no developer has figured out how to make them engaging in augmented reality, not just yet.
I really can’t wait to see what type of ingenious game ideas developers can do with technologies like Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore. I’m sure it won’t take long and we will see many more games that will ignite our imagination and will transform AR to a mainstream platform to play games on.
I’m interested to hear what you think. What’s the best game genres that worked best for you playing ARKit games?