The Rainbow Thief is a mini-game where a magical rainbow appears on Earth, only to be stolen by an evil penguin, turning the world black and white. With help from a talking star, you must battle the penguin to retrieve the rainbow pieces and restore color to the world.
Project Details
Role: Creator and Developer
Development Platform: Unity
Published on: Android
Programming Language: C#
Features: Niantic VPS Location-based AR
Inspiration & Concept
Where did the idea for a rainbow-stealing penguin come from? Honestly, I have no idea! But it made me smile, and that was enough. I love working on location-based AR projects (check out Framed!) and was eager to create something new with those features. Niantic VPS lets you add content to specific real-world locations with centimeter precision, opening up immersive storytelling opportunities.
Development Process
Since I was comfortable with Niantic VPS, I challenged myself to add Semantic Segmentation, a feature that detects different parts of your environment like sky, ground, or water. I wanted the rainbow to look like it was actually in the sky while giving users control over its placement, so it wouldn’t automatically appear in obstructed areas behind buildings or trees. Users would “tap the sky” to place the rainbow at a certain distance from the camera.
I also used occlusion to make the rainbow placement look more realistic by having real-life objects partially obstruct the digital content.
Here’s the plot twist! It didn’t work as I envisioned. The occlusion didn’t look smooth enough with sky segmentation, so I changed the story. The magical rainbow now appears on Earth instead. Users tap the ground, not the sky. Sometimes you must pivot and find alternative solutions. It is what it is.