the magic of books

Recently I’ve been focusing my posts here on the big players and their progress in AR (and a bit VR). But of course much more is happening (as can be seen *cut to commercial* in my facebook / google+ / twitter worlds). So, today I want to briefly present a small but charming project:

Books & Magic from Denmark have a running kickstarter campaign to fund their magic book plans of showing the little mermaid become alive. They have only 2 weeks to go with their pledge and I wanted to raise awareness here. If you are new to this field, imagine a magic book like an old pop-up book, but done virtually with AR!

The magic book concept is as old as the first Hiro marker, but here – I think – we find it in perfection! The storybook works totally analogue and offline and tells the full original little mermaid’s story from Hans Christian Andersen. Beautifully illustrated it could stand alone perfectly. But (with today’s smartphone distracted kids) they enhanced it nicely with AR. The 3D designs look really pretty and matching to the overall style of the illustrations. (Luckily tracking is 2015 solid enough to not have Hiro markers inside the book anymore…) But where most magic books stop (only showing some augmented static object) this one goes further and allows more interaction and mini-games on each illustrated page that nicely matches the story. The kids can explore the story deeper – for example by moving around the book using the smart device as the gateway into the hidden world or they can solve puzzles, grow sea flora, etc.

I think it’s well done with love to the details and really extends the book immersion nicely. It’s not just showing a 3D object but allows for true interaction. Their concept seems well thought out. But we need to support it to see it come alive. :-)

More gameplay videos can be seen on their kickstarter page. Darn you, crabs! I already hate you for cutting down my flowers!

Cheers!