Sleep Walker | Devpost

Start of the game
Game over

One day discussing enjoyable interactions, we thought that all computer games are made to be played by looking at them, obviously. So, we thought that it might be interesting to design a game when you intentionally should not look at the screen at all.

We wanted to test the hypothesis if such interaction would be fun, so we wanted to have some basic game mechanics; we chose the runner type of the game.

Luckily Snapchat has a front camera which tracks the user's face with the required accuracy. We also wouldn't miss adding nice touches, which make the experience more enjoyable and replayable. We spent some time making sure that style of the game was clean, at the same time, distinguishable. A good example of nice detail is that the hero sometimes tells some funny or encouraging phrases.

Quite a challenge for us was to build a fully 2D game in the AR-focused 3D game engine. But Lens Studio was, as always, flexible enough.

For us, the main takeaway is that we should never settle on the basic interactions and should keep experimenting, as behind every solid paradigm sits interesting interaction or game mechanics.

What's next for Sleep Walker

Next would be great to turn this game around and make it a game for two: To capture both - front and back cameras, so the back camera supports the main character who has to close his eyes to cross the road, and the front camera captures "helper" or the person who guides the main character (who actually can see the road condition). It can be developed as a game for friends or a challenge for couples.

The game was published on Jan 5th and already has around 2mil plays.