Aladdin's Cave of Wonders

Adventure into Aladdin's Cave. Can you retrieve the lamp avoiding the enchanted trees bearing jeweled fruit?

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Inspiration

In my experience designing the first iPhone game to working on games like Myst, The Sims, The Matrix, and Star Wars Mixed Reality is a trip down the rabbit hole to experience wonderland. I grew up in Wonderland for 5 years in the Middle East where as a kid I rode camels, climbed pyramids, explored fire temples. Now I want to go back to experience that child like full body wonder again and bring all my friends. XR is the first technology platform where I can recreate some of these experiences.

Growing up in the Mid East one of my favorite stories is the tale of Aladdin and the magic lamp from 1001 Arabian Nights. The part I read the most was where at the beginning Aladdin explores an underground cave full of trees with fruit shaped jewels and piles of gold coins. The cave is cursed so Aladdin must go to the very back of the cave without touching any of the treasure, for even if the hem of his robe brushes against it, he will be turned to stone. Once he finds the small unassuming lamp at the back of the cave he can gather as many gems and coins as his pockets can hold. This part happens all before Aladdin meets the genie inside the lamp for the first time. The next chapter of the game introduces the genie.

As a kid I always wanted to explore a cave filled with jeweled fruit trees and golden treasure and gather as much of these as my pockets could carry. With AR now I can.

The exploration of Aladdin's treasure filled cave is a perfect story for an AR game on Magic Leap.

Aladdin Dash

In Aladdin Dash become Aladdin and explore the gem filled cave to retrieve your magic lamp. Be careful, because as you explore your living room transformed into Aladdin's magical world you must avoid the trees until you possess the all powerful magic lamp. Touch too many trees and the spell is broken and the cave dissolves away. Once you hold the lamp you can then gather as many gems and treasure as your pockets will carry!

Additional inspiration for mechanics and narrative design comes from my previous games. I am the lead engineer on Follow the White Rabbit, Pumpkin Smash, and this new game Aladdin Dash. For LEAPcon I did proof of concept ports to Magic Leap Follow the White Rabbit and Pumpkin Smash. Video link here:

The New Screen Savers Leo Laporte and Nicole Lazzaro Hands On Demo of Magic Leap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqLkeJQD8PU

Additionally, I produced and designed a full version of the first iPhone game called Tilt World which has planted 16K trees in Madagascar. http://TiltWorld.com

What it does (gameplay)

Adventure into Aladdin's Cave. Can you retrieve the lamp avoiding the enchanted trees bearing jeweled fruit?

Adventurers explore a mixed reality forest projected into their own room (walls, ceiling, and floor) using Magic Leap. The player must navigate through the enchanted trees without touching them until they reach the magic lamp hidden at the far end of the cave. Touch too many trees or treasure and the enchanted caves dissolves away. However, once the player has the lamp is in hand the player makes the return trip gathering as many jeweled fruit from the trees as they can.

Obstacles and goals The player must find the lamp without touching the trees that reach out to grab them as they walk by. The player must also avoid touching the treasure. Then the player must find the magic lamp hidden somewhere in the cave. Once the player has the lamp they are under it's protection and then can return to the cave entrance gathering as many gems and treasure as they can.

To get more out of the AR experience we plan to add:

  1. Hand Gesture API to interact with the world (acquire the magic lamp and gather jeweled fruit and treasure)
  2. Dynamic / procedural generation of trees and other items in the cave based on user's room geometry.
  3. Game interaction and logic
  4. Tree animations to reach out to grab at the player making walking through the cave more challenging. (Stretch goal)

How I (will) build it

In Unity with the Magic Leap SDK using dynamic placement of objects and hand gestures. The trees and a few other assets are modified from models from the Unity Asset store as seen in the concept video. We will be creating new versions, new models, as well as most of the gameplay code, hand gestures, and dynamic placement (which is not written) on-site for the Hackathon. Our focus is on creating a compelling interactive story and gameplay for players as well as a rich player experience. Any models and particle effects we use from the Asset store will have original customized textures.

The uploaded video shows the basic concept of walking through the gem covered forest with a magic lamp to collect. During the Hackathon we will replace these assets and write the code to make the game functional.

Challenges I plan for the Hackathon

I plan to use these aspects of the Magic Leap API

  1. Gathering gems with hand gesture API
  2. Dynamic placement of trees
  3. Tree animations to grab at the player

What's next for Aladdin's Cave

For the Hackathon we plan to create an immersive App where we

  1. Allow players to gather gems and the magic lamp using hand gestures. We will explore the gesture API and code the hand gestures as part of the jam.

  2. Turn the environment into a cave filled with magical gem covered trees and piles of gold coins (dynamic placement based on room mesh). We will do this as part of the jam.

  3. Game interaction for touching trees, gathering the lamp, and gathering the gems.

Stretch Goals

  1. Have the trees animated and respond to the player's proximity reaching out or receding depending on the game play. The level begins with the player losing points from the trees grabbing / reaching out towards the player and the player having to avoid them. After picking up the magic lamp the trees covered with gems respond to the player differently and the player can gather the gems. If the player touches too many trees the forest dissolves away bringing the player back to reality.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Here's the video from the Hackathon: https://youtu.be/H63IB-jqf6Q

What I learned

https://youtu.be/Ck5dujMqbd0

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