Death, taxes and Minecraft Earth launch countries – that’s what it feels like lately, with new launch countries for the mobile AR game popping up every few days. This time, it’s the United Kingdom’s turn to get building.
Tea, crumpets – and now also Minecraft Earth! Early access has arrived in the United Kingdom. Jolly good!
People living in the UK can now download the game, which is in early access and launching gradually worldwide, a few countries at a time. The United Kingdom joins New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, Mexico, Sweden, Canada, South Korea and the Philippines as launch countries. There is still no word on a United States launch, but given that the UK is one of the bigger markets that the game has launched in, a US launch might be coming soon.
The mobile AR game is Minecraft’s response to Pokemon Go and other map-based mobile games that get you out of the house and exploring the real world, intertwined with AR elements. You can build structures, craft weapons, collect materials by exploring your real-world neighborhood and fight monsters in AR during the “adventure” events scattered across the map.
While the game does share similarities to other map-based AR games, it also has its own nice Minecraft-spin to it that offers some nice points of difference. I’ve been able to try the game out here in Australia already, so you can expect a first impressions piece on the game soon.
What are your thoughts on Minecraft Earth? Have you tried the game out, and are you still waiting for it to launch in your country? Let us know in the comments below.
The Minecraft Earth release schedule seems to be speeding up a bit – just a few days after the last batch of countries, the new AR mobile game is now available in Canada, South Korea and the Philippines.
Queued up and ready to go! Today, three additional countries join the Minecraft Earth early access. Say hi to:
The game, while still in early access, is now available publicly to anyone in Australia, Mexico, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, South Korea, the Philippines and Iceland. The release schedule is gradual, rolling out a few countries at a time. With Canada, Australia and South Korea now on the map, it looks like we’re getting closer to a release in some of the bigger markets like the US and the UK.
Minecraft Earth is Microsoft’s response to the mobile AR craze that started with Pokemon Go. You’ll have to get out of the house and explore the real world and use AR to build structures and complete “adventure” events set in the Minecraft universe. You can also collect materials, craft items and smelt resources just like you can in the original version of Minecraft, but not without a few changes to adapt it to the AR-based mobile platform.
I’ve been jumping into Minecraft Earth here and there since the Australian release last week, and it’s definitely an interesting spin on existing AR-based mobile games like PoGo or Wizards Unite. You can expect a first impressions piece, and other Minecraft Earth content, coming soon.
Have you been able to dive into Minecraft Earth already, or are you still waiting for the game to release in your country? Let us know in the comments below.
After an initial launch in New Zealand and Iceland, Minecraft Earth early access is now available in Australia, Mexico and Sweden. The game is gradually rolling out across a few countries at a time, seemingly in smaller markets first.
Early access is in full swing and rolling out around the world! We’re working around the block to bring everyone into Minecraft Earth. Here are today’s countries: Australia Mexico Sweden More info on our early access plans
While it’s still launching in early access, this gradual launch is not restricted and is available to anyone, provided you’re in one of the supported launch countries. Minecraft Earth previously launched a closed beta for select players only, and early access marks the first time the game is available publicly.
This is Minecraft’s response to Pokemon Go and other map-based mobile games that get you out of the house and exploring the real world, intertwined with AR elements. You can build structures, craft weapons, collect materials by exploring your real-world neighborhood and fight monsters in AR during the “adventure” events scattered across the map.
I downloaded the app today and gave it a try. While it’s still early obviously, there are some really fun elements that hark back to 2011 and give me major Minecraft nostalgia. The game still has a lot to offer that I haven’t checked out yet, but it does also feel somewhat distinguished from other similar AR games like Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
There’s still no concrete word on when the game will launch in some of the larger markets like the US or the UK. The best indicator we have is on the Minecraft Earth site, which just indicates it will launch in more countries “in the coming weeks.”
Be sure to keep an eye out for more Minecraft Earth coverage from us in the next few weeks. If you’re in one of the supported early access countries and you’ve tried the game out, let us know in the comments below.
Team Rocket have officially invaded Pokemon Go with their dangerous new Shadow type Pokemon.
Now dubbed Team GO Rocket, the dangerous shadow organization popularized in the mainline Pokemon games and anime have finally arrived to wreak havoc. They bring with them strange new Shadow Pokemon exhibiting odd behaviors that are in dire need of help from trainers like you.
As part of their inclusion in the game, some PokeStops will appear discolored on the map, indicating they’ve been tainted by evil purple and black shadow powers. If you tap on the discolored PokeStop then you’ll encounter a member of Team Rocket for a battle. If you win the Shadow battle, then you’ll have the opportunity to try and catch an abandoned Shadow Pokemon that you can purify.
Once purified, it can actually “become strong than their standard counterparts” according to the official Pokemon blog post. The purification process results in a Pokemon auto-leveled to 25 if you’re at least that level already, plus a big bump to all of its stats. This makes them a new special type similar to Shiny and Lucky Pokemon.
However, if you purify them, then they are no longer considered Shadow Pokemon. So if you want to collect and leave them stylized as Shadow, then you can’t purify them even though that would make them more powerful. You’ve just got to weight the results and pick for yourself.
Are you still playing? Let us know down in the comments below if you’re still trying to catch them all or if you’ve moved on to Niantic’s newest game, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
Minecraft Earth, an all-new mobile AR version of the global sensation sandbox building and survival game, is coming to iOS later this month and Android “soon thereafter” according to the official blog.
We first heard about Minecraft Earth about two months ago in mid-May when developers Mojang released an announcement trailer and then last month debuted actual gameplay for the very first time. Now, they’ve got a brand new beta announcement video that goes over more details regarding the game’s mechanics and gameplay:
Basically you’re presented with an overworld map that looks strikingly similar to Pokemon Go, complete with a Minecraft-style block avatar complete with skins. It uses the actual world map to create the environment. You walk around and tap on items like animals and blocks to collect them. Naturally, they’re called “tappables” in Minecraft Earth.
Once you collect enough tappables, you level up and once you have enough resources you can build things that are placed into the real world from your phone screen. It’s described as a “living, breathing” Minecraft world. It includes multiplayer seamlessly integrated where people can help “or hinder” your creations. Then you can scale creations to life-size to explore and see in the world around you.
I haven’t tried it yet, but honestly, it looks impressive.
The limited iOS beta for Minecraft Earth is due out within the next two weeks, which means sometime before July 26th. Only a “limited number of players in a few select cities” will be chosen before a wider release this summer.
It’s difficult to make AR map-based games unique. Pokémon Go, Ghostbusters World, and now Harry Potter: Wizard’s Unite all feel similar in a fundamental way. They all involve walking around in real life while a virtual avatar does the same on your phone, capturing different types of beasts, and taking on checklist challenges that include the first two items on this list.
So when you look at Wizard’s Unite, which was just released this week, it’s important to look at how it tries to make itself stand out. It’s developed by Niantic, the creators of Pokémon Go, so a lot of the game’s DNA is literally the same—they’d be foolish not to use the same infrastructure they’ve been building since Ingress launched in 2012.
I’ve been playing Wizard’s Unite since Tuesday when Niantic and Warner Bros. Games hosted a launch event at Universal Studios Hollywood, the home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It felt fitting to play it in the makeshift world of Hogwarts The first thing I noticed is that Wizard’s Unite looks vastly different from Pokémon Go. Booting it up shows off fantastical buildings, a rustic outline of the surrounding streets, and streaks of magic floating in the sky.
It’s a wonderful sight filled with music that will make Harry Potter fans smile. Once you start playing some of that magic wears thin though, especially if you aren’t a lover of J.K. Rowling’s wondrous universe.
After loading the game up things get confusing and frustrating. You learn that a mysterious calamity scattered magical items and people all over the world and you have to help restore them to their rightful place. As you roam the map instead of spotting Pokemon they’re replaced by different characters and items trapped by “confoundable” magic. You must capture these confoundables to add them to your registry. Collecting those, leveling up your character, and fighting through fortresses (the alternate version of Pokémon Go raids), are the main elements of Wizard’s Unite.
The problem is that all these things are tied to your energy, a mechanic that limits how much you can capture and fight with magic. If you run out of energy you need to collect more from inns, other challenges, or buy them via microtransactions in the in-game store. Right now, the scales are heavily tipped in the direction of buying with real money. Inns, which are like Pokémon Go’s PokeStops that give out Pokéballs, don’t give you much energy, so you’ll run out quickly on your own.
It’s Wizard’s Unites’ greatest weakness. Fighting confounded magic and battling users of the dark arts is a lot of fun, just like Pokémon Go was at the start. It clutches onto that collectathon mindset and encourages you to get out and explore your neighborhood to see how Niantic has adapted it to the world of wizards and witches. The problem is that it also discourages you from continuing to play once you run out of energy. It’s clear that higher levels will be a continuous grind and if you don’t live in a big urban center like Los Angeles you won’t be able to visit as many inns or fortresses. Major lessons from Pokémon Go weren’t applied here: energy sources are few and far in-between (even in a major city), my phone’s battery was drained quickly, and there is no way to gain rewards for walking unless the app is open (something that Go solved by syncing with Google Fit to see how far you walked since last opening the game.)
One big positive in Wizard’s Unite at launch already is its combat and lore. You aren’t just trying to capture creatures by throwing a ball at them, you’re tracing a relevant spell on the screen to counteract confoundable magic. It’s a wonky system that works half the time, but when the screen connects with your finger accurately it feels wonderful.
However, it is frustrating that there is little to no balance in Wizard’s Unite, making some combat encounters feel pointless. I’ve encountered creatures that are at a much higher level, marked as a certain difficulty on a meter before battle, that seem nearly impossible to capture. It’s not clear why I’m encountering them and they drained a good amount of my energy before I even knew how to use it.
There are other things that make this AR map game different. You can find items lying on the ground around you, craft potions to help make your magic stronger, and choose a profession that you can level up with a skill tree. All features that make Wizard’s Unite feel unique. All features that are hindered by the games energy system.
There are three professions in Wizard’s Unite: Auror, Professor, and Mazigoologist. They each have a bit of lore behind them but they come down to warrior, healer, and support classes that all have different advantages and disadvantages in combat. Their abilities break down in a simple way, Auror’s are strong against dark magic and weak against beasts, Professors are strong against curiosities and weak against dark magic, and mazigoologists are strong against beasts but weak against curiosities.
Each profession has a skill tree with small upgrades, although none of them have a huge effect on gameplay. It’s a nice level of depth compared to Pokemon Go, but isn’t anything to write home about. I ended up choosing the class that sounded the most interesting, Auror, but it hasn’t affected how I’ve played the game much. More serious AR gamers might form a squad to fight through fortresses efficiently.
These systems don’t do anything to solve the energy problem though. Systems like these that prevent players from diving in deeper are the primary issue with map based AR games today. They stifle play sessions by forcing you to either buy more energy, which took the form of Pokéballs in Pokémon Go, or walk to in-game inns that shell out a measly amount of energy that might let you play a little longer. It’s a crummy way to design a game meant to encourage exploration.
Wizard’s Unite shouldn’t make energy drops more plentiful, they should scrap the system altogether. There is nothing in the Harry Potter universe that makes the concept of ‘energy’ make sense. Monetizable cosmetics would be a far more interesting way to make the game profitable.
Wizard’s Unite already lets you customize your own wizard identity with photo filters and a swanky ID, but that’s it. Imagine being able to deeply customize your own avatar, something already available in Pokémon Go, or create a wand that is actually tied to the RPG mechanics in the game (right now all wands perform the same). These are features that may come later on, but after three years of Pokémon Go, why aren’t they in Wizard’s Unite at launch?
Wizard’s Unite is on the right path in standing out from Pokémon Go, the wand mechanics are promising if a bit lacking in depth, the RPG mechanics are compelling, and the universe is full of exciting details. It’s a shame that the energy system takes priority over all this, making what would be a fun experience quite dull.
To check it out for yourself, you can download Harry Potter: Wizards Unite for free on the Google Play store for Android or the App Store for iOS.
Created by Niantic, of Pokemon Go fame, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is a location-based AR mobile game that aims to take what made Pokemon Go great and apply it to the world of Harry Potter.
Announced in 2017, the game is in every way a follow-up to the success of Pokemon Go. Developed in collaboration with Warner Bros. Games, it seems as if WB saw the Pokemon Go craze in 2016 and quickly hired Niantic to try and replicate that success with the Harry Potter IP. Here we are, two years after the deal was announced, with Harry Potter: Wizards Unite as the end result.
The game is currently available as of the time of this writing for beta testing in New Zealand and Australia, although I fear no adjustments or bug fixes could help this game before its worldwide launch. Wizards Unite unfortunately feels like a sad, uninspired clone of Pokemon Go from what I’ve seen so far.
I was never a huge Pokemon Go player myself, but the similarities between Go and Wizards Unite are easy to see. It’s not just that the games are similar in concept, such as The Walking Dead: Our World, but rather that Go has been carbon copied and re-skinned with a Harry Potter-overlay. Chuck in some dull spell-casting mechanics and shoddy non-Daniel Radcliffe voice acting and you (apparently) have yourself a new game.
The game follows the same core mechanics and gameplay of Pokemon Go: when you start the game up, you see a little wizard representation of yourself on a map, placed according to your phone’s location at that time. There are then several points-of-interest located across the map which you can walk toward and interact with once you reach their physical location in the world.
It’s so similar to Pokemon Go that it’s honestly concerning. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter feels so hamfisted into the existing Pokemon Go game structure that not only does it not work, it’s just not engaging in any sense.
The cool thing about Pokemon Go was that it used AR to create an experience that matched the core story of Pokemon. Just like in any Pokemon game, show or story, you were walking around and catching Pokemon in the wild, using your phone as a guide, and then visiting Pokestops and battling with your Pokemon at gyms. What you did in the game directly mirrored what Pokemon trainers do in the Pokemon lore, and that fostered great IP synergy. This also meant that the location-based elements of the game and the usage of AR felt less gimmicky, because you were actually mirroring the actions of a Pokemon trainer.
The problem here is that the system doesn’t translate at all to the Harry Potter universe. The basic story is that magic creatures have been displaced across the muggle world, and the Ministry of Magic needs your help to find them and return them to their original locations by catching them.
The first time you play the game and start an account, there’s an incredible amount of convoluted backstory that immediately gets explained to you by a Daniel Radcliffe-impersonator posing as a post-Epilogue Harry Potter, along with a Ministry official who works with Hermione. The story seems only concerned with wrangling excuses to use the existing Pokemon Go systems of gyms, Pokestops, and the like in a Harry Potter-relevant way.
Catching a magical creature works the same way as catching Pokemon, except instead of throwing Pokeballs you draw a line on the screen to cast a spell.
The graphics of the AR creatures that appear around you are, to put it nicely, not great. Although Pokemon Go’s graphics were probably on the same level, that game got away with it a lot more as Pokemon were already inherently cartoon-style animals. None of the Harry Potter universe has ever been represented in a non-photorealistic way, so seeing a low-resolution baby Hippogrifth appear on your street is underwhelming.
After the context for the narrative is all done, the game still doesn’t stop explaining things. Within the first two hours of playing, I was bombarded with so many explanations of the various types of interactable-locations that I forgot what each one did and why they were important. Some contain minigames, some allow you to collect items, but none of them feel engaging. What’s worse is that all of the locations you can interact with in the real world are the exact same landmarks as you’ll find in Pokemon Go. I compared the streets around my house in both Pokemon Go and Wizards Unite, and of the visitable landmarks were the same, just slightly changed to reflect the game you were playing.
After 2-3 hours of Wizards Unite, I realized that there was nothing about the game that made me ever want to pick it back up again. Although I only properly played Pokemon Go for a month or two when it it first came out, I totally understood the appeal, especially to hardcore Pokemon fans. I was once a huge Harry Potter fan, and there’s nothing about Wizards Unite that I find engaging or exciting. It doesn’t really even feel like a Harry Potter game, and it certainly doesn’t have the staying power of Pokemon Go.
Pokemon Go got people outside, walking around, and using AR because they got to pretend they were a Pokemon trainer. That same incentive just doesn’t exist in Wizards Unite. Instead of creating an AR game that is special, unique, and actually applicable to the Harry Potter universe, Niantic have phoned it in and created a Pokemon Go clone. Fingers crossed the full release is somehow magically much better.
Despite the bolt on Harry’s head, it is very clear that, in Niantic’s case, lightning does not strike twice.
Augmented reality is proving to be a potent marketing tool in the hands of the right brands, and world-famous spirits maker Jack Daniel’s is today unveiling one of the strongest uses yet of the technology. Developed by Tactic, the company’s AR Experience app turns the classic black-and-white front label of any Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey bottle into a matching pop-up book, educating consumers about the company and brand.
Intended solely for users of legal drinking age — 21 and over in the United States — the free app uses a smartphone or tablet camera to recognize the shape of anything from a 50ml miniature to a giant-sized 1.75L bottle. A photorealistic version of the front label then syncs up with the real bottle’s position, unfolding to reveal stylized objects, text, and environmental effects.
There are three experiences. The first is a step-by-step explanation of whiskey manufacturing, including everything from water sourcing and mash milling to the barrel making, fermentation, and distillation processes. Each step appears as its own small pop-out diorama.
Next is a wider-format look at the company’s Lynchburg, Tennessee distillery, complete with its own barrel cooperage and cave spring — all rendered to a surprising level of detail. Last up is a collection of stories about “the man himself,” Jack Daniel. All of the content is voice narrated in a Sam Elliott-like baritone for an extra air of old American authenticity.
If you already have a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on hand, or find a bottle at a store, it’s impressive that you can learn so much more about the product and brand simply by looking through your phone’s screen. The only limitation — and a likely intentional one — is that you can’t get the AR experience without actually buying or otherwise having one of those bottles handy. Flat 2D-style scrolling text content is all you can view if you don’t have a bottle.
The Jack Daniel’s AR Experience app is available now through the iOS App Storefor iPhones and iPads, and through the Google Play Store for Android users. In addition to being age-gated through both stores for users 17 and up, the app requires a 21-or-older age-confirming birthdate on first run.
We all remember Pokemon Snap, right? The classic Nintendo 64 game in which you drove around on-rails through a variety of levels taking candid photos of unsuspecting Pokemon in their natural habitats. As a kid, I was obsessed with uncovering all of the secrets and hidden photo opportunities. Now, the team behind the mobile AR phenomenon Pokemon Go, seems to be channeling that spirit a bit with the latest Snapshop feature.
By pointing your phone at an area in the real world you can throw out a pokeball and release any of your captured Pokemon into the world for photo opportunities. The results lead to some pretty amazing situations, such as a Psyduck standing next to actual ducks, Pikachu playing on a jungle gym, and more. It’s a wonder that this sort of feature wasn’t added earlier.
Here are some of the great examples Niantic provided:
Select a Pokémon and tap on the screen to throw its Poké Ball to that spot. Once your Pokémon is situated in the ideal spot, you can then move around it to find the best angle for your photo. Is your Pokémon distracted or looking the wrong way? Brush across it to get its attention, and it will be sure to face you.
Take as many photos as you like during your session. Once you’re finished, all photos are saved to your device automatically! It’s also easier than ever to share your favorite photo via social media. Just select the linked social channel you want to share with, and you can show your friends your masterpiece with a couple of quick taps.
I stopped playing Pokemon Go a long time ago, but I see the appeal. In its wake a long list of other location-based mobile AR games have released like Ghostbusters World, Jurassic Park, The Walking Dead, and soon a Harry Potter game from the same creators of Pokemon Go itself.
Do you still play Pokemon Go? Lots of people do and they keep making it better. Do you plan on taking advantage of the new snapshot feature? If you do, make sure to share it on social media with the #GOsnapshot hashtag. Let us know down in the comments below!
Enabling mobile devices to be better compatible with augmented reality (AR) has been a big focus for Apple and Google lately, as they introduce the tools necessary to enable developers greater and easier access to AR features. Not to be left behind, the Facebook AI Camera Team is working on various technologies and tools. Adding make up and using filters is just the beginning though, as Facebook aim to create accurate full body tracking technology which uses just a mobile phone camera.
Being able to track body movements in real time is a difficult task, as the Facebook team explain in their blog post. Poses and body shapes are difficult to track across a wide range of people, not to mention items of clothing can help confuse matter, unlike facial features, which have generally uniform placements and features with fewer variable.
While still in the research phase, Facebook have managed to device technology which can detect body poses and accurately track a body against a background. The technology is based on the Mask R-CNN framework, which they’ve adapted for full body tracking and segmentation.
Unlike many solutions to body tracking, the application they’ve devised is only a few megabytes in size, and is lightweight in nature, meaning even conventional smart phones can actually run the technology.
What’s next for the team? Well, in their blog, the team state; “Developing computer vision models for mobile devices is a challenging task. A mobile model has to be small, fast and accurate without large memory requirements. We will continue exploring new model architectures which will lead to more efficient models. We will also explore models that can better fit in mobile GPUs and DSPs which has the potential to save both the battery and computational power.”
The new technology looks to be taking augmented reality on mobile devices to the next level – at this point, many apps feature AR features, whether they be comprehensive or smaller, and Facebook’s research might put them at the forefront of mobile AR technology. We hope to see a more finalised version of Facebook technology in the near future, but in the meantime, you can look at their blog for more technical information, and stay on VRFocus for more virtual reality (VR) and AR news.
United Kingdom. Jolly good!
South Korea
Canada
Philippines⁰
Australia
Mexico
Sweden
