AR-based scavenger hunt game for real-world exploration
To develop an interactive AR-based scavenger hunt game that encourages exploration by guiding players to real-world points of interest (POIs). The game dynamically detects proximity to the nearest POI, allowing players to discover and unlock clues through immersive touch interactions, creating an engaging and educational location-based experience.
Questhunter GO represents the convergence of augmented reality technology with educational gaming, creating an innovative platform that encourages real-world exploration and learning. The game leverages mobile device capabilities including GPS, camera, and AR technology to create an immersive experience that bridges the digital and physical worlds. The core gameplay revolves around discovering and interacting with Points of Interest (POIs) in the real world. Players are guided to various locations where they can unlock educational content, solve puzzles, and learn about the historical or cultural significance of each location. The game dynamically adjusts content based on player proximity to POIs, ensuring smooth and responsive gameplay. Key challenges included the accuracy of GPS on mobile devices fluctuating significantly due to environmental factors, low to mid-range smartphones struggling to handle AR experiences smoothly, and the official Mapbox SDK not being compatible with Unity 6. The implementation integrated Mapbox SDK in Unity so users could interact with a real-time GPS-based map, added different points of interest in the map to drop clues for users to pick up, created scripts to continuously manage player distance to points of interest and keep record of players only using a point of interest once, implemented scripts for AR interactions and placement of clues in AR, built a system that keeps track of collected clues and saves user progress, and added a complete navigation system that allows users to go to any screen of the game. The project successfully delivered mapbox integration for real-time location-based gameplay, POI-based clue placement for location-specific challenges, distance tracking and POI usage scripts for fair gameplay, AR interaction scripts for immersive experiences, clue tracking and story system for scalable content, and a navigation system that improved usability.
