Garfield: Stray Sim

MISSION

Stray Sim enhances the real world metaverse with virtual pets! Pets make people happy, so we’re bringing virtual pets to life at Lightship VPS Wayspots- users can feed, play with, and even train these pets without needing to take on the full responsibility (or cost) of owning an actual pet. If you build a strong enough bond with a pet, you’ll get to adopt it as your own!

Just like how dog owners often gather at parks for both dog and human socializing, we envision a world in which pet lovers will gather at Wayspots with their virtual pets, providing a new set of gathering points for the community!

HOW TO PLAY

Virtual creatures live at specific places out in the world waiting for players to discover them! To interact, the player must find the creature (located in a VPS Wayspot) and tap the screen to give it treats. The creature will purr in excitement (walk close to hear its purr!) and wiggle with happiness when the user feeds it. Walking while the app is open will generate more treats, so keep walking through your neighborhood to feed all your "strays"!

HOW WE BUILT IT

We anchored the creature to the real-world location using Lightship VPS Wayspots to allow the creature to hide behind a table with occlusion. ARDK is used to create smart collisions with an ARMesh, allowing treats to bounce off walls and roll on the floor. Pressing the button on the app creates a treat and launches it. We designed the UI through Unity and used a custom skin to decorate the button. We added a step counter for mobile phones and set it to generate a treat every 10 steps. We used YouTube and UnityStore to get 3D assets (including animation!) and found sounds available for free online. Unity sound settings allowed us to create a purr that gets louder as you get closer. 

FOR THE FUTURE

Ideally, we want to allow people to interact with the creature together (using ARDK to allow peer-to-peer connection) and see the same creature on their different devices. We also want to have the creature move and interact with the environment (using Lightship Gameboard when available!) and respond to voice commands from the player. This will give the creature a more realistic feel and help the user feel connected in the moment. We also want to build in an element of time, having the creature build affinity for the player over multiple discrete interactions, and changing its behavior towards the player accordingly. This helps build a friendship that is organic and long-lasting.