Bottle Flip Challenge AR is a target throwing augmented reality (AR) game for iOS 11.0 or later, developed using ARKit. The goal of the game is simple, try to flip the bottle from one surface to another using swipe motion gestures and have it land up straight to earn points.
After the game scans the surface, it puts a table on the floor. You have an option to choose from four different bottles. At the right side, you’ll see the bottle standing on a floating surface. Use a swipe gesture to flip it so it lands on the second surface.
The longer the swipe, the stronger the flip. also, try to use a combination of different angles and swipe lengths to successfully make the bottle land on the surface. You don’t have to be 100% accurate, the game employs some auto-balancing to help you out. Furthermore, the bottle doesn’t need to be stable on the other platform, just touch it with its bottom part.
I like object throwing games. The last one I played was Tower AR. Paper Bin AR and AR Flip Knife. Bottle flip is like AR Flip Knife, but instead of throwing the bottle up and make it land on the same platform, you need to flip it towards another platform.
The controls not well optimized. For example, if you swipe close to the bottle it will just move the bottle too fast. It just felt very quirky and the animation code certainly needs to be further optimized to make the flipping controls more predictable and accurate.
I also didn’t like the level design. The game has two distinctive areas, one for the table and one for the actual gameplay. It takes around 2.5×2.5 meters space which could easily be less if there was only one area displayed at any given time. Furthermore, the gameplay area is on the right side. When I first chose a bottle nothing happened, I expected the game to start, only to find out later that the game exists in a separate area on my right. Why not let the user choose a bottle, remove the table and show the game area in the same place?
I also didn’t like the UI in the 3D space and would just prefer a regular on-screen overlay.
What I did like are the nice visual effects where you fail or succeed in flipping the bottle. Flipping bottle in AR is fun, and I like the idea of flipping the bottle between two platforms. That being said, although the idea is nice, the execution is not impressive at all. I don’t understand why not investing more in some visual effects for the flip animation, making the platforms look more interesting rather than a white simple shape. Furthermore, the game has no progression whatsoever, it just remembers the longest number of flips you were able to do, and you don’t even need to do it in succession just in a single session.
Having an option to unlock new types of bottles and creating levels with increased difficulty would give some sort of progression and make the game feel more challenging and rewarding at the same time.
Overall, the idea is nice, the execution is quite bad, unfortunately,