Festive People AR

Virtual and augmented reality are two areas of development that are getting increasing attention from technology companies.  While virtual reality requires special equipment, chances are you have all of the tools you need to start playing with augmented reality.

Most modern handheld devices have the necessary cameras and sensors to support augmented reality (AR).  With AR, the apps output, an enhanced version of the physical world, is not viewed through a cumbersome mask but on the screen of your device.

Festive People AR app uses AR to let children play with the paraphernalia associated with different festivals from around the world.  This makes it something of a seasonal app but as it covers Christmas, Halloween, Diwali, and most recently Easter, the seasons it covers come around often.

This app is primarily entertainment-based but it does have educational facets.  With it, children can be introduced to festivals that are less known in their communities.  The different items and symbols shown in each activity are also useful starting points for teachers to discuss their significance and history within each festival.

There is a short process for beginning each of the festival activities.  As the app's output is tied to the real world it needs to complete a short scan of its surroundings.  This is no more complex than pointing your device's camera at the ground and moving forward slowly.  In a well-lit environment, this takes about 2 seconds and even young children will be able to do it easily. 

The interactivity in most of the activities involves decorating the space around the player.  At Christmas, for example, players can place trees in the room and decorate them, presents can be scattered and snow can fill the room.  In other festivals, fireworks can be lit using a sparking taper.

Users of the app can easily undo any changes or entirely reset the scene by tapping the appropriate icon. Photos and 10-second videos can be taken of the decorated room and these will launch a method of sharing them once done. This might be a nice way of letting children connect with far-away relatives at festival times.

In the most recent feature of this app, added during its last update,  children can take part in an Easter treasure hunt.   Either children can create their own Easter village and hide treasures within it or they can pick one of a number of presets.  In the first case, the phone can be handed to another child who can then try to find all of the treasures.  In the second case, children can set straight off and do the hunt themselves.

There is an innovative feature in this scene.  As well as the full-size version of the hunt, which can be played in an open space such as a garden, there is a reduced-scale version which could be played in a normal-sized room.  For children who cannot visit a park, without access to a garden or during bad weather, this is a useful feature.

In all of the festival scenes, players can walk around and among the items placed in the scene.  The illusion is very good.  The items remain convincingly anchored to the physical environment.  A virtual person called Niki can also be summoned and she responds to some of the player's interactions and also relays some interesting facts about the festival.

Festive People AR is not designed to be a pure educational app.  Rather it is a fun app that encourages children to engage with the physical world in a new way and also introduces them to different ways people celebrate their culture.  It is a free app in ongoing development that has recently had the whole Easter section and other enhancements made.  There are no advertisements or in-app purchases.  It is well worth downloading and taking a look at this new area of augmented reality for yourself.

You can download Festive People AR on your iOS or Android devices from the app stores. Download the Festive People AR app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.