Diver GO

DiverLanhoso is one of the largest adventure parks in Europe situated in the North of Portugal, close to the Peneda-Gerês National Park. Occupying around 170 hectares of green space, Diver Lanhoso offers a wide variety of adventure and leisure activities. Annually the park provides services for about 40 000 visitors, who come looking for new experiences and adventures.

In 2019, we were challenged to fulfill the unique experiences of discoveries. Likewise, we developed DiverGo, an augmented reality application. Through the application, the visitor was invited to visit the main points of the park, discover the clues, and find the DiverGo monster!

Use the map to find all the clues;

Read the augmented image targets;

Unlock unique experiences on each point;

Discover the whereabouts of the monster for a final experience.

We had a clear briefing in which the monster needed to be cute and not scary. The monster would appear hidden through blurred images, which meant we needed to pay special attention to the silhouette, in order to indicate a big and menacing creature, creating a funny surprise in the end.

For the concept art we worked on shapes directly on the 3D, where we sketched a variety of sculpts to determine its general shape. Afterwards we worked on the proportions and giving a realistic look to his surface, questioning the size of elements like the mouth and the fur. We loved how the monster with fur looked when moving in the different animations. We went for a length long enough to look dynamic on movement but that does not detract from its original round shape.

The public needed to identify this creature as a monster in a first interaction and as such, we used elements like horned backs and horned arms, but with horns that are not too much pointy or scary. The monster would have a big set of eyes, so that his expression would convey a strong set of emotions.

In terms of color we went for green patterns that indicate some sort of camouflage and blending with the environment, instead of the more colorful tests that we did at first.

Each experience appears in augmented reality, near the image target that triggers it. All of them are 3D animations overlapped to the camera's image, creating the illusion of augmented reality.

The experiences were in essence clues about the monster: In one point we would see vintage photographs taken by another explorer, in another we would see an axe that was thrown by the monster and we would even find an horrible stew that no living being would want to eat. Each of these markers would bring us closer to the final experience, when we finally see the monster.

The interface is inspired by the natural tones of the park, with a visual that hints towards exploration and fantasy. The user experience is centered on the map, from which all points are accessible and the user can track his progress.

We wanted to create original visuals, within the colorful and wild style of the park, instead of dull QR codes. We had multiple iteractions of each target, ensuring that it had the best recognition and tracking by the augmented reality software.

When you finally discover the monster, you will be able to take a selfie with him in many different positions. This reward to the user also encourages sharing on social media and increases brand awareness.