Jake Scott – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 18, 2020

Reality Clash Developer Diary – February 2020

Welcome to the latest edition of our Developer Diary series. This month we will be looking at the new features in the Marketplace, celebrating our placement in the Top 50 blockchain games companies for 2020, plus a sneak peek at our new AR UX…

January has come and gone, but we’ve started the year with a blast, having attended and spoken at Pocket Gamer Connects 2020, been recognised as a Top 25 Blockchain Games company and launched new features for the Reality Clash trading platform, all the while continuing to work on the UI redesign of the mobile videogame.

Phew. A lot has happened. We are absolutely delighted – and extremely humbled – to be named as #25 in the Top 50 Blockchain Games companies, as compiled by BlockchainGamer.

It wasn’t something we were expecting but, like the awards last year, it’s amazing for the team to be recognised for all the hard work they’ve put in over the previous 12 months.

Now, on to more technical matters. We’ve had several requests from our community to introduce a better way of tracking ‘sell’ orders within the Marketplace platform. Some of our savvy traders have managed to rake in some serious profits by trading Reality Clash in-game weapons, but have found keeping tabs on sales more difficult than it should be. To make the process more efficient, we have introduced a brand-new ‘My Listings’ page, from which traders can view and easily amend all of their active listings on the Marketplace.

We have also added a ‘Top Traders’ section to the website. This leaderboard highlights the most successful traders on our platform with the ability to sort between the daily, weekly and all-time Top Traders. If you’ve made the list, congratulations!

All traders on this leaderboard are anonymous by default. However, it’s possible for you to remove this anonymity in profile settings and show off your spot amongst the Top Traders. We’re working on some exciting rewards for our Top Traders too, so if you’ve made the list, hold onto that spot.

Finally, we have also adjusted the display of items in the Armoury and Marketplace to highlight the volume of items available and have priced all items in a live USD value which is equivalent to the price of RCC. This gives our new and old users a better idea of the value of their NFTs on the open market.

Oh – and one more thing: We’ve started working on a new design for Reality Clash mobile AR combat game itself, including a UI overhaul design plan which will be implemented in the next couple of months.

We can’t wait to show it off – the design will be brighter and more responsive, with improved UX. Here’s a sneak peek to keep you going until our next diary when full details will be revealed for the first time!

October 18, 2019

Reality Clash Developer Diary – October 2019

Although Winter is almost upon us and the nights are getting colder, things are still heating up for Reality Clash. This month, we were delighted to have been chosen as Winner of the ‘Blockchain in Mobile’ category of the 2019 Meffy’s awards and as the Best AR/VR Game at the Crypto Games Conference.

Reality Clash Meffys Award

A huge thank you to all of the MEF members and conference attendees who voted for us, the other entrants and the organisers for the time and effort they put in.

Both wins have also coincided with several other awards nominations for Reality Clash/Reality Gaming Group, including the Creativity category at the TIGA Awards, which as any developer will tell you is extremely humbling. It is a fantastic feeling to have received recognition for your project.

In fact, October has been/is a busy month, with several important games industry events and conferences taking place.

Our CEO and Co-Founder Morten Rongaard attended the Crypto Games Conference itself, giving a talk on ‘Breaking The Boundaries of AR Gaming’ and participating in several panel discussions, while our other Co-Founder Tony Pearce has been in Spain at World Telemedia.

Future Game Features

But it’s not all awards and travel. As discussed in previous editions of this diary, we have been spending the past few months improving the current MVP (Minimum Viable Product) game version and dealing with any bugs that are encountered – but as we move forward into 2020, we have an extensive roadmap of features that we intend to implement. The specifics of these features have been ironed out over the past few weeks and prioritised into a development schedule.

Finalising this schedule has been a great experience because it has given us a chance to talk about how each member of the team sees the future of Reality Clash. As a group, we all have a similar vision for the project, but the differences in opinion also help us to analyse the game from varying perspectives to build something unique. We’re really excited to introduce these new features to our players and we are also grateful for all of the feedback that they have provided so far.

Some of the features we have planned are highly ambitious and so part of the next phase for the studio is a fundraising round. As reported in the press recently, all potential investors will have the opportunity to become shareholders in Reality Gaming Group. This process will also see our Digital Asset Trading Platform and Reality Platform development tools being made available to 3rd party developers under license, which we’ll reveal more details of shortly.

It all adds up to a busy Q4 – See you next month!

August 13, 2019

Reality Clash Developer Diary – August 2019

We’re back for a new edition of the Reality Clash Developer Diary series – and suffice it to say a lot has happened since the last time we checked in with you.

The Reality Clash videogame is now live as a minimum viable product (MVP) globally, which is super exciting and means we’ve been getting great feedback from both the Reality Clash community and our own in-game analytics.

As such, we’ve spent most of the summer optimising the gameplay and ironing out any teething issues, ensuring we can apply the necessary fixes quickly in our test build before pushing out an update to the live environment. Once again, community feedback has been vital here, in providing real-time bug reporting and additional feature requests.

But what’s been really interesting is seeing how the AR and location elements of Reality Clash are encouraging people to engage with other players and the environments around them.

For example, here are the top 10 real-world locations in London in which players have been skirmishing with each other and mining for resources:

Trafalgar Square
Leicester Square
The World’s End Pub (Camden)
Hyde Park
Regent’s Park
Westfield Stratford
Soho Square
Covent Garden
The Kings Road
Emirates Stadium

We’re still not completely sure why the World’s End pub is so high up the list (we’re working on it), but in broad terms the data has shown us that players are willing to cover a lot of ground in order to secure the advantage – one player, from North West London, trekked an astonishing 20 square km in just two days in order to claim precious in-game territory.

This knowledge has given us the confidence to explore more gameplay ideas – we can see from the data that players are routinely heading to the in-game ‘Safe Zones’ where they can regain health and can take a break from the battle. So now we’re in negotiations with large retailers and pub chains, which will become future Safe Zones in the map, potentially driving hundreds of gamers to a particular location.

Reality Clash newimage2

Another interesting sub-set of players is the UK’s student population. Before the summer we activated a campaign to engage with Subtv’s audience of 1.2M 18-24 year-olds across TV, digital and mobile platforms, encompassing a network of 80+ sites/100+ venues in universities nationwide. By cross-referencing the campaign and in-game data, we extrapolated that these are the top campuses for AR combat and resource mining:-

University of Birmingham
University of Bournemouth
University of Essex
University of Nottingham
University of Exeter
University of Chester
University of Teeside
University of Portsmouth
University of Central Lancashire
Keele University

So much for the cliché that students are lazy – students at the University of Birmingham covered 10 square in-game kilometres in one week…

Forest Gump

Away from the AR elements, we’ve also reorganised our ‘crypto collectibles’ Trading Platform. All the weapons on the platform have been re-tokenised to an ERC721 standard, meaning players can trade in-game items with each other on our platform or on third-party platforms such as opensea.io, all secured on the Ethereum blockchain. The Trading Platform now has a dedicated website which can be found at this link. The tokenised items can be used in Reality Clash and will be made available for use in our future titles. We also hope to work alongside other projects in the space to enable our RC GUN items to operate within other games as well.

Reality Clash - RC Gun

In addition, we’ve been working with influencers and content creators to try and bring Reality Clash to as many users as possible.

And we’re very interested in hearing what YOU would like to see us doing. Is there a specific feature you want to see in the videogame? Is there an event that you think we need to be at?

We’re now finalising our roadmap for the next 12 months – and we’ll be revealing some of the exciting features we have coming up in the next Developer Diary, so stay tuned for more.

May 23, 2018

Reality Clash Developer Diary – Part Seven

Welcome to the seventh edition of our ‘Developer Diaries’, in which we keep you informed on the progress of Reality Clash and provide updates from our developers.

In this edition we wanted to share more information about the creation of the digital assets currently seen on the Reality Clash Armoury Store and Android App. As such we asked Kevin Boase, Development Director of Buko Studios, Manilla, which exclusively develops the weapons for Reality Clash, to give us a step through guide on how these digital assets are created.

Reality Clash

The staging process involved in the creation of these assets is set out from the design concept through to the integration of the item into the app. A lot of work goes into each item and we have tried to show the major points of the process in this diary:

CONCEPT & DESIGN

Review the technical data and specifications from the Game Design Document (GDD).
Check real life references including loadout options, firing and reloading.
Block out weapon concepts in 3d, establishing moving parts and weapon form.
From the start we establish the calibre of ammo, clip size and working mechanics alongside a referenced model to conform to basic ergonomics and dimensions.
The initial batch of weapons take cues from real world weapons; great care is taken to tone the weapon aesthetic based on its imagined place in history, origin and intended purpose.
Some weapons are purely functional; their look heavily influenced by production techniques of the time or place they might be built.
More modern weapons utilise advanced materials and these required a lot of design work to ensure good handling and ergonomics.

Reality Clash

3D MODELLING | TEXTURING

We utilise Hard Surface Polygon Modelling using a mixture of block modelling and subdivision techniques using Autodesk MayaLT.
We assign materials to the mesh, assessing use of metals, molded plastics, and padded components. Whilst we use UV Layouts, we ensure the texture data can be baked to a single texture page for optimal file handling.

SKINS | PATTERNS | DECALS

We manage our decals, texture sheets and colour schemes using Adobe Photoshop CC. The software is capable of handling the level of detail that we need when making these weapons.
The skins/decals are applied to the weapons with specific rules in order to match up our cryptocurrency skins and technical skins within the 3D application.
UV Sets are used to apply the illustrative liveries to give most impact on the weapon.
We apply decals and stickers where appropriate to give the weapons more interest and personality. We have a lot of creative room for varieties of skins due to the ongoing production prior to, and at the game’s launch, towards the end of 2018.

EXPORT FOR ARMOURY STORE

We export the weapon package for Sketchfab via Allegorithmic’s Substance Painter.

Finally, with the creation of the weapon completed, the item must be tested and then animated for use within the Armoury app and, later, in the Reality Clash app.

GAME SETUP AND ANIMATION CONTROL

Weapons are tested to conform to specifications and nodes for character attachment.
Rig controls are added to manage operations such as trigger-pulling and firing parts of the weapon.
We animate the bullet right from loading from the Magazine through to firing and ejecting the shell.
The weapon is imported into the Character Rig setup and fitted comfortably into the hands with a natural firing position.

These items are later added to The Armoury store and imported into the Armoury app, completing the long journey from our designers to our backers and soon-to-be players. The weapon is tokenized when sold to a player and ownership of this item is registered on the Ethereum blockchain. A truly unique item has been created and passed to its owner! Scarcity of the item is guaranteed and a transaction fee to tokenize has created inherent value

We hope that you have found this Developer Diary to be of interest, if you want to see some of these items up close – you can download our Android Armoury app here. All items are available at the Armoury for RCC holders, with weekly additions of limited edition weaponry. Stay tuned for our next installment in which we discuss more on the Tokenization of these items.

March 14, 2018

Reality Clash Developer Diary – Part Six

Ahead of the actual Reality Clash videogame launch in Q3 of 2018, we’re pleased to announce that a companion app, called the Reality Clash Armoury, will be arriving later this month.

Reality Clash Armoury With the full Reality Clash title in full production, we realise that our supporters are keen to see updates as we progress – giving them the opportunity to provide feedback on the project. The new Armoury app, which will be available on iOS and Android, will allow the user to ‘try before you buy’ – in short, allowing them to test and play with all of the guns that will be available in the full videogame before it’s released.

What is the Reality Clash Armoury?

This new app utilises the phone camera and real-time 3D gun animation, displaying an AR view of the world on the screen. It’s a fun and interactive way of seeing the exclusive weapons available to folks who invested in our ICO last year.

New guns will be released weekly and automatically downloaded into the app for people to play with for free. Users will be able to pinch-zoom up close on 3D images and change weapon skins instantly.

Once they’ve chosen a gun – BOOM – they can see it in a real-time AR environment and start shooting.

How does this help with the development of the core title?

Quite simply, it offers us a fantastic opportunity to get weapons in players’ hands during the creative process and get what will be valuable feedback.

The Armoury uses our BaaS system – which was discussed in the last update – to store the weapon economy and assets. This means we can download new weapons directly to the app without the user needing to do anything. Using the BaaS and the weapons systems early helps us iron out any problems that may arise before the release of the core app.

It also allows us to discover and address any compatibility issues with different handsets while in development, so they can be fixed before we release the full videogame.

When will the online armoury store launch?

The online armoury store will also open for business in March. Gamers/traders/collectors will be able to use their RCC currency to obtain limited edition weapons, which they can either hold for speculative purposes or equip in-game to dominate the enemy.

More detailed information about the online Armoury Store will be released in the next few weeks, and we’ll provide additional information about how the Armoury store will develop and evolve over the coming months.

Stay tuned, March is going to be a BIG month with plenty of announcements from Reality Clash.

February 14, 2018

Reality Clash Developer Diary – Part Five

Welcome to the fifth edition of our ‘Developer Diaries’, keeping you informed about the progress of Reality Clash and the latest updates from our developers. For this update we wanted to focus on the backend technology that drives some of the key features of the videogame.

Reality Clash - BaaS Nearly every modern mobile videogame will utilise a BaaS (Backend as a Service) to allow the developers to remotely communicate with each other and work on the code. Reality Clash utilises this technology in many ways and we want to explain a few of these to you.

Player Accounts

Every Reality Clash player creates their own unique account, which securely stores all relevant information such as name, user profile, gameplay statistics such as kill/death ratio, as well as weapon purchases, custom configurations and loadout. The cloud profile also ensures player preferences and inventory to be automatically restored if you they devices.

These profiles can also be accessed by the Reality Clash trading platform, so in-game item purchases will automatically show up within the mobile app.

Leaderboards

Comprehensive leaderboards allow us to store the results of in-game fights and as the title grows, highlighting the best local, national and global players to let people see how they compare against their friends (and foes!).

Economy

The in-game economy forms one of the largest parts of the BaaS – it’s where we store all the information regarding weapons and consumables. Weapons in Reality Clash are defined by a large number of parameters to ensure that combat is as realistic and fun as possible and that each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses.

The economy can be updated at any time to add new weapons and items to the videogame without requiring an update of the iOS or Android app itself. This provides a smoother user experience, whilst also allowing us to ensure players are always up to date.

DLC

Each weapon’s models and textures are stored in a compressed downloadable package. This means we can add new weapon assets to the app alongside updates to the economy without re-downloading other weapons that haven’t changed, which reduces the bandwidth that Reality Clash uses.

Cloud Code & Data

It used to be that all the data and code needed to be on the device itself, but now we have the ability run code and access data from the cloud. This feature opens up great opportunities to interact with the community, reward players remotely and support future features such as Clans, Tournaments and Competitions.

Push Notifications

We want to ensure that players never miss anything, so the BaaS allows us to send notifications to devices, such as challenges from other players, updates on new available weapons or new safehouses in your area that may be of interest.

Analytics

The analytics system allows us to track how players are using the title and iterate and, as such, improve the gameplay and user experience. For example, if we notice that players are utilising certain features more than others, we can add new shortcuts to make them more accessible.

A/B Testing

A/B testing allows us to try out new features on different focus groups to see how they’re received before we release them to the entire world. We can add a new feature and then test it with different parameters in different geographical locations, monitoring the feedback and tweaking the gameplay accordingly.

The BaaS allows us to easily balance and improve the title once it is released without having to make players download large updates to the videogame on their devices.

It isn’t the only online technology being used however, as Reality Clash also utilises custom servers that ensure players can easily find opponents to fight and validate combat to make it harder for nefarious players to cheat.

But there will be more about that in a later update…

January 17, 2018

Reality Clash Developer Diary – Part Three

Welcome to the third of our Developer Diaries, keeping you informed on the build progress of Reality Clash, a mobile augmented reality (AR) combat game for iPhone and Android. For this update, we wanted to focus on how we’re prototyping different approaches of blending the real and virtual worlds together.

Reality Clash AR technology has come a long way in recent years, but as with any technology based on cameras, it’s as easy to break as it is to make it look awesome.

It sounds obvious, but it quite literally all depends on what is in front of the lens at any given time. As shown in recent Apple keynote demos, a scripted demo on a stage with an empty table offers a perfectly stable environment to place some virtual objects.

However, in Reality Clash we don’t have this luxury, and expect our players to be running around busy environments where objects may suddenly appear in front of them.

Reality Clash As such we’ve been spending a lot of time exploring visual approaches to blending worlds together in order to evaluate what will work best in-game.

This has seen us prototype various approaches to the problem, such as portals that can magically grow in front of the player, offering a glimpse into a virtual world that you can then walk around.

Alternatively, turning the phone into a portable window into a parallel dimension that tries to mirror reality, as well as trying to blend the virtual and real worlds together without any visual FX.

Reality Clash All of these techniques bring their own advantages and disadvantages and we will continue to iterate on these approaches to find one that can offer the best gameplay solution, alongside a visual approach that will keep players immersed in the game.

In addition, the team has continued to expand in terms of programming staff and the addition of a UI/UX expert who is currently wireframing the journey through the entire Reality Clash experience.

Meanwhile, our team in Manila continue to build exclusive new weapons for our early ICO backers and competition winners, all of which will start to appear on the online trading platform when it’s launched.

Reality Clash Topics for future updates will include the challenge of dealing with GPS location on mobile devices and how inaccurate it can sometimes be, plus our aforementioned approach to UI/UX and the staged approach to game development.

Join Jake for the next edition of the Reality Clash Developer Diaries in two weeks time, here on VRFocus.

December 27, 2017

Reality Clash Developer Diary – Part Two

Welcome to the second of our updates about mobile augmented reality (AR) combat videogame Reality Clash and what our developers are doing, to keep you informed about our journey and hopefully offering you some useful insight on the creative process.

If you need a reminder about the game itself, it’s essentially ‘Pokémon Go meets Call of Duty’ for iOS and Android devices – but here’s a link to the first instalment to give you an overview.

Our developers are continuing to prototype the core features of the videogame, and the last couple of weeks have seen geolocation and mapping becoming the focus of research and development.

The team has been evaluating various technologies to ensure that Reality Clash maps are of the highest possible resolution.

Offering highly scalable, high-definition maps is an important feature of the game and we want players to feel engaged with the map screen as much as with the AR gameplay. 3D buildings provide an additional level of detail and depth as you scroll around your local environment to find other players.

The current artwork shown here is still placeholder but you can see how this added depth to buildings greatly improves the perception that you are viewing the world from a high-tech vantage point.

Accurate geo-location is difficult to achieve and can raise problems like those seen in the image above when we cannot accurately overlay buildings on their real-world counterparts.

To help address these problems, the design and art teams are working closely with the technology team to ensure that even if the player does not have an accurate GPS signal they can still play the game and these confusing artefacts do not hamper their enjoyment.

There’ll be more about this in future weeks as we start to reveal our work on the AR interface.

Our team is also working round-the-clock on the Reality Clash trading platform to bring this to our Initial Coin Offering (ICO) funding backers, something we touched on briefly in the last diary. The weapon scarcity and valuation structure is nearing completion, while all weaponry for the first batch release has been completed. Community feedback on the weaponry has been very positive so far. Our backers will soon be able to get their hands on the first batch of weaponry and begin building their arsenal.

Above is one example of an exclusive Elite Assault gun, which will be available on the trading platform from launch.

In our next Dev Diary we’ll be focussing on how we’re prototyping different approaches to blending real and virtual worlds together.