WANTED: GRAKK'THUL

Grakk'thul is terrorizing Miami and it's up to your team of adventurers to stop him! An AR/web3 experience powered by Niantic's 8th Wall technology.

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Inspiration

We were inspired by Wanted Quests from World of Warcraft where you need to form a party of adventurers to slay a tough monster. Pokémon Go was also a huge inspiration for our game. Grakk'thul's fictional crimes were inspired by real Florida Man headlines.

What it does

When players find a WANTED: GRAKK'THUL poster, they can scan a QR code to be instantly thrown into battle against Grakk'thul, a goblin who has escaped from his reality into ours and is rampaging across Miami.

You and your friends will shoot fireballs to bring down Grakk'thul in the world's first multiplayer AR combat experience.

Killing Grakk'thul rewards you with [Grakk'thul's Squirrel Smasher], a legendary weapon NFT you can use in other games.

We designed and placed hundreds of Wanted posters around Miami during hack week to advertise our game.

How we built it

We used Niantic's 8th Wall technology to create the AR experience, while utilizing socket.io and a Node backend to add multiplayer networking.

Challenges we ran into

  • Had to self-host 8th Wall in order to add multiplayer
  • Multiplayer in 8th Wall required several hacks to get working
  • Distributing hundreds of Wanted posters across Miami to spread the word

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • We built the world's first multiplayer AR combat demo
  • The CTO of Niantic played our demo and liked it!
  • We interviewed multiple Niantic team members who witnessed Grakk'thul terrorizing Miami
  • Over 250 unique players across Miami scanned the QR code on our WANTED posters and came face-to-face with Grakk'thul.

What we learned

  • Adding in some humor is an excellent way to get people engaged with your project
  • Advertising your project at different hack houses is an amazing way to foster serendipity and make connections

What's next for WANTED: GRAKK'THUL

We are continuing development after Miami Hack Week to turn WANTED into a series of immersive AR experiences. Look for us at SXSW next.

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