Balloon Tower Defense AR Demo - Development of Interface Application

Introduction

It's time to try the best tower defence game on the market! All from your phone, NO DOWNLOAD REQUIRED!

Description of the Application

This application is designed to be a product advertisement for the tower defence game, "Bloons Tower Defence". The prototype allows the user to place two image targets representing the playable map and a monkey tower in real space. Once the user begins to scan the map, a balloon begins to traverse the track of the map, and it is the user's responsibility to discover the best way to arrange the tower to effectively destroy the balloon before it reaches the end of the map. In this early prototype stage, the game only has one map and one tower for demonstrational purposes. However, this AR application could demonstrate other maps and towers (with different functions) with other image targets. Once the user has placed their tower in real space, they tap the screen (or mouse) to fire a dart towards the balloon to attempt to pop it. The user's score (total amount of balloons popped) appears in the top left of the screen.

This prototype shows how Augmented Reality technology can be a suitable means for producing a quick and straightforward experience for advertising key concepts. This application displays how product marketing could be enhanced through this technology. This demo allows the user to very quickly get a feel for how the whole game works by demonstrating some of the critical concepts of the game. It would be expected that a demonstration like this would be used at a gaming convention or gaming retail store where the developer would be looking to demonstrate some of the new maps on offer or the towers' abilities.

The AR component of the application is integral to the portability and ease of access to the demo. The ability of the user to easily alter the tower's position or swap in and out different towers/maps very quickly is a necessary component of the advertising to allow the user/customer to engage. Judah Schiller from 'The Treetop Therapy reported that the average attention span has decreased 4.25 seconds since 2000 to 8.25 seconds (Schiller, 2023). This information makes it important to quickly 'snag' a customer. Developing an AR application similar to mine is an effective technique as it brings quick adjustability and minimal setup to game demonstrations.

Interaction Design

Three critical interactions within this application make it what it is. The first two are the two image targets that allow the user to place the map, and the second is the target that places the monkey tower. This element of AR allows this demonstration to have the 'plug and play' simplicity that can quickly deliver the critical game concepts of the whole game that is being advertised. In the full title, a significant element is the strategic side of where to place the towers to make them most effective, which AR allows us to manipulate this aspect with our hands seamlessly. In a further developed prototype, adding more towers and maps would give the user more knowledge on what makes the game the joy it is. The third interaction allows the user to control the firing of the monkey tower through the click/tap to increase engagement. Utkarsh Shukla from 'tutorialspoint' speaks about the relationship between attention span increase and intensity of stimuli (Shukla, 2022). So, in our case, by increasing the customer's apparent interaction, we will theoretically keep them attentive to our demonstration.

Technical Development

The application was developed in Unity Engine using the Vuforia AR extension to track image targets. For testing purposes, I used a virtual webcam for ease of access and the virtual webcam was developed through OBS studio. Also, testing was done by printing out the physical image targets and using a webcam connected to Unity. Though it was discovered that using only a 720p webcam became problematic for reading the smaller image target used to scan the monkey tower.

Descriptions of 3D Models

References

Bloons Wiki (no date) Monkey Meadow, Monkey Meadows. FANDOM. Available at: https://bloons.fandom.com/wiki/Monkey_Meadow (Accessed: 21 September 2023). 

Fourleaflover (2019) Target and arrow vector icon. Dartboard shoot, business aim and target focus symbol stock illustration stock illustration, iStock. iStock. Available at: https://www.istockphoto.com/vector/target-and-arrow-vector-icon-dartboard-shoot-... (Accessed: 24 September 2023). 

Schiller, J. (2023) Average human attention span by age: 31 statistics, The Treetop ABA Therapy. Available at: https://www.thetreetop.com/statistics/average-human-attention-span#:~:text=Average%20Human%20Attention%20Span%20Statistics,than%20goldfish%20(9%20seconds). (Accessed: 26 September 2023). 

Shukla, U. (2022) Factors influencing attention, Online Courses and eBooks Library. Available at: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/factors-influencing-attention#:~:text=Attention%20can%20be%20drawn%20to,be%20selected%20for%20maximum%20attention. (Accessed: 26 September 2023). 

C# Scripts were co-written using ChatGPT, link to chat log: https://chat.openai.com/share/62948c64-c13d-4fb0-99ef-1c78dd747265