Music Pop is an experiment in developing a mobile rhythm game which leverages the motion tracking capabilities of the new Tango AR platform. I wanted to see if we could invent a mechanic for casual mobile dancing; when you are waiting for the bus or just moving about town. Could it then be extended to a city-as-game board scale where players are able to compete based on location. Can you be the dance king or queen of your bus stop or local block? What about a face-to-face battle?

Moving to the beat of the music, players must move their body to the position of where the bubbles appear and pop them on rhythm. Completing a series of basic moves then presents the user with more challenging gestures to complete. After completing a power move gesture, the player is rewarded with an augmented decoration of their space – like a disco ball hanging from the ceiling of the bus stop – to further reward the player for their great rhythm and dancing!

We completed development of the initial game mechanic with beat syncing done via Koreographer. After a few rounds of testing/ iteration and as Tango AR has now move to Google AR Core – we are reimagining our initial mechanic to be simpler and target a broader device audience. This game began as work with Google’s Daydream/ Tango Team on untapped areas of their AR portfolio. Reviewing it with them periodically throughout our development process, they were excited to finally see a game which leveraged the motion-tracking capabilities of the platform!