Insomniac Games, the minds behind Rift titles Edge of Nowhere (2016), The Unspoken (2017), and upcoming open-world adventure Stormland, today released their first AR experience for Magic Leap One. Dubbed Seedling, the experience is AR headset’s first paid app.
Seedling puts you in the shoes of a space cadet tasked with repairing a dying galactic ecosystem with the help of a mysterious field kit. You nurture, grow and customize alien plant lifeforms in your living room, letting your creations thrive in tune with its placement and the objects around it in the physical world.
There’s also alien critters that Insomniac says “respond to your touch in a variety of playful ways as you repair their galactic ecosystem.”
Speaking in a behind-the-scenes video (linked below), Insomniac Games lead gameplay programmer Joel Bartley says “our final version actually looks at the real world around you because the Magic Leap device is constantly scanning all the tables, floors, walls and everything. Our plant will grow around that stuff as it grows in.”
Next Reality went hands-on with Seedling, saying that while the app is incredibly beautiful and well realized, it “doesn’t immediately come off as a must-play experience that will garner many repeat plays from obsessed users. Rather, the meditative nature of the app seems more like a great demonstration of Magic Leap’s spatial computing technology, similar to Tónandi, rather than a paid app with a real chance at snagging major revenue.”
As a developer-focused headset priced at $2,300, the release of Seedling on Magic Leap One represents the company’s first chance to test out its payment processing system and gather data on who’s buying, and how long people tend to play—all important steps along the way to creating a fully fledged app store as the company marches towards consumer-oriented AR devices.
The store already features a few free experiences and games including Weta Workshop’s Invaders, Angry Birds: First Person Slingshot, Sigur Rós’ music experience Tónandi, and Magic Leap’s sandbox experience Project Create.
Seedling is available in the ‘Magic Leap World’ section of the store, priced at $10.