Pokemon Go studio Niantic now offers one of Quest’s most interesting examples of mixed reality experimentation.
The free Hello, Dot app available now lets loose one of the virtual creatures from the AR game out into your environment. You can grab the jiggly little creature from the air, dip it in a bucket of paint, or point at a surface to direct its interest. You can also make a gesture with your hand to summon food and feed it.
The developers told UploadVR they’re looking at Apple Vision Pro for Hello, Dot, but there’s no release date.
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The app is Meta Quest 3’s first standout example of dynamic occlusion. At one point, the Peridot was nowhere to be seen until I lifted my laptop to find it basically pawing at my leg. The app supports hand tracking and mixed reality on Quest 3 with Niantic listing out the individual team credits for the people who worked on the project on its store page listing:
Hello, Dot, takes the best parts of caring for an adorable creature (a Peridot) and brings them to life through the magic of mixed reality.
In this immersive experience, you’ll be able to admire just how visually stunning your Dots are up close, and develop a special bond with them as you play together. Imagine being able to hook your hands under your Dot’s arms and pick them up – and then toss them up and and let them float back down into your embrace. Or perhaps your favorite song is playing in the background and you want to have a little dance party with your Dot. Or maybe you want to just relax on the couch snuggled up against your Dot. The possibilities are endless and the joy you’ll feel is REAL.
Indoor VR platforms like Quest and Vision Pro don’t offer the tools yet for world-scale navigation, which along with an assortment of other reasons, puts map-based apps like Pokemon Go out of reach for now.
Still, Dot’s environmental understanding and direct responsiveness should be enough to make some people miss their Dot when they take their headset off.
