Steel Spinners

Inspiration

The project was born from a desire to bring the physical, high-octane energy of competitive top-spinning battles into a digital, social space. We wanted to recreate the excitement of a Beyblade stadium using Augmented Reality, allowing friends to challenge each other regardless of their physical location.

What it does

Steel Spinners is a turn-based AR game where players launch customizable tops into a real-world arena, such as a kitchen pan.

Players use a timed power meter to determine their launch speed.

Data is stored in the cloud, allowing a second player to receive the snap and trigger a synchronized battle.

The game simulates collisions and "knockout" ejections based on the relative power and impact angles of the two spinners.

How we built it

To ensure a smooth experience on all devices, we bypassed standard physics engines in favor of custom procedural animation scripts.

Movement Logic: We used circular trigonometry to handle the orbiting paths and parabolic math to simulate the depth of the arena.

Interaction: Collisions are handled via distance-checking and vector-based recoil to provide a snappy, responsive feel.

Cloud Infrastructure: We utilized Snapchat’s turn-based storage to manage game states and power variables between users.

Challenges we ran into

Handling 3D collisions without a physics engine was our biggest hurdle.

Initially, objects would overlap or pass through each other.

We solved this by developing an "overlap correction" algorithm that pushes objects apart along their collision normal.

Synchronizing the "Sudden Death" state so that the battle ends with a definitive, physical knockout required careful timing between the game timer and the collision logic.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully created a "hardcoded" movement system that feels remarkably like real-world top physics. Achieving a smooth transition from a camera-launched projectile to a spinning battle state inside a 3D-detected pan was a major technical win for the project.

What we learned

We learned that custom math can often be more performant and controllable than generic physics engines for AR games. We also gained a deep understanding of turn-based cloud persistence, specifically how to ensure a game reaches a conclusion even if a player's connection is interrupted.

What's next for Steel Spinners

The next phase for Steel Spinners involves adding customizable parts and "Special Moves" that players can trigger during the battle. We also plan to implement more complex arena detection to allow the tops to interact with a wider variety of real-world surfaces and shapes.

Built With

• javascript
• lensstudio