Tower Superbloom AR Promo Art

Transform the very world around you with the Tower Superbloom AR experience! This augmented reality game was powered by Niantic’s Lightship development platform.

Check out these gameplay screenshots! The game is absolutely gorgeous.

If you want to download the flower-powered augmented reality experience, it is available on Android and iOS now. The game was developed to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

For this event, The Tower of London planted over 20 million flower seeds, resulting in a Superbloom. It created an elegant haven for birds and bugs alike. Which got the Historic Royal Palaces wondering how they could share this experience with the world.

This resulted in the development of Tower Superbloom AR. The app was developed by the Historic Royal Palaces in partnership with PRELOADED using the Lightship ARDK.

The Tower Superbloom AR experience isn’t just a simple—place static flowers anywhere. The developers went the full distance! It even simulates the growth of the flowers, providing an accurate, authentic recreation.

How did PRELOADED manage this? They examined each flower part of the Superbloom event, right down to the anatomical level. This way, they would be able to recreate a true-to-life augmented reality version.

The digitized flowers are broken down into parts: stems, stamens, nodes, blades, and buds. Each one is animated, which results in lifelike movement and level of detail.

Isn’t it just breathtaking? Tower Superbloom AR looks near indistinguishable from real life.

They also have a “three-stage” blooming process to mimic their real-life counterparts. The experience doesn’t end at just pretty flowers, however.

To faithfully translate the London Superbloom event, you’ll also be able to walk around and discover the life that lives among the flowers. The AR experience urges you to discover the different types of flowers, and uncover the bugs living on them!

The Tower Superbloom AR app is nothing short of incredible. It seamlessly, and beautifully blends together the digital and real world. It provides a breathtaking experience, and shows the true potential of augmented reality.

Likewise, it’s also a genius idea, translating real-world events into a virtual experience for everyone to enjoy! As well as adding in meaningful gameplay elements, so players can learn more about the flower and bug species.

Want to learn all the behind-the-scenes and development backstory? Give the Tower Superbloom AR Official Website a read! It has some genuinely fascinating information.

We’re finally starting to see some incredible experiences come from the Lightship program. Recently, we’ve also seen the Game of Thrones DracARys pet dragon experience release, too.


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By Camellia Hao Ren

Camellia Hao Ren is an Australian journalist and editor. When they aren't writing, they are usually playing games or reading.

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