Disney Star Wars Rebels: Play Blippar’s most advanced AR game yet

To celebrate the launch of Star Wars Rebels, the new animated series from Disney, Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm Animation, Blippar partnered with the cinematic giants to produce a spectacular interactive mobile experience - and one of the most advanced augmented reality games we’ve ever built.

Star Wars Rebels, which lands on British TV screens in October, is set five years before Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and 14 years after Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It follows the Rebel Alliance, a motley crew of rebels who unite aboard the starship Ghost after finding themselves affected by the fall of the Galactic Republic.

Blipp the Star Wars Rebels logo in the poster above to play the awesome Tie-Fighters game

The blipp is triggered off the Star Wars Rebels logo, seen at the top of the poster above, which can also be found on A5 leaflets distributed in Disney stores across the UK.

Blipping the logo makes it open like a hatch to reveal an animated video and interactive animations of each of the main rebels: Zeb, Chopper, Ezra, Sabine, Kanan and Hera. Users can then tap each of the characters to read their biographies, and play a cool AR game, Tie-Fighers, in which they must use controls on their mobile screen to shoot at enemy spaceships (Tie-Fighters) against the backdrop of their own real-world environment.

In a Blippar first, the intense, action-packed game can be played without needing the marker to stay in view.

The campaign offers an immersive experience to Star Wars Rebels’ main audience (primarily boys aged 7-11) and core Star Wars fans in a visually fun and engaging way.

The back of the leaflet features a great deal of excellent Blippar education

Jeff Kershaw, the Blippar developer who built the blipp, said: ‘The Star Wars game is definitely one of the most advanced we have built to date, and the first to give the user an augmented gaming experience without having to track the marker (i.e.: keep the trigger in view).

‘In the game you have to shoot at tie-fighters flying around your own environment. My boy was laughing while he was shooting as they kept flying close to his mum's head and in front of his sister’s face!

‘One of the biggest challenges during the build was working out how users were going to shoot the things. You are not actually firing anything, and once shot the Tie-Fighters must stop flying. Translating that into 3D-modelling and code took a bit of creative thinking… and lots of coding jiggery pokery!’

The Star Wars Rebels blipp homescreen, from which you can choose to play the game or learn more

The Tie-Fighters game lets you shoot spaceships against the backdrop of your own environment

Tap the on-screen missile-firing rockets to shoot the spaceships

Leon Tyler, one half of a pair of Blippar designers who created the sensationally immersive look and feel of the blipp, said: ‘My main objective designing this game was to refine the concept down to its most exciting element and shed any excess weight.

‘As I find it quite easy to think like a 12-year-old boy I quickly realised the most exciting aspect of this game would be blowing things up. My main focus was to make the art of blowing Tie-Fighters up as fun and visually exciting as it could be. It all came to this formula I spent about six weeks working on:

*BOOOOM* (bits fly everywhere) + *giggle* = fun.

‘I guess the biggest challenge was pioneering this single-minded focus and convincing others that blowing things up was fun enough without needing to shoehorn in any other, less impactful mechanics.’

The blipp also offers in-depth biographies of all the Star Wars Rebels

Tom Henchman, the other half of the project’s stellar design team, added: ‘Star Wars is the kind of project every designer/developer/human male dreams of working on, so we all felt a pressure and responsibility to make this as amazing and showcase-y as possible.

‘We all wanted this in our portfolios, so wanted to ensure we were really proud of the final product - which I'm pretty sure we all are. My part of the design was the initial overlay and menus, so I had the important job of making sure users were engaged enough in a clear journey not to lose interest or get lost before they actually found the game itself.

‘Once they’re inside the game (and that famous John Williams score starts playing) everyone is immediately totally wrapped up in it. It’s testament to the guys' skills that it's such a seamless and instantly enjoyable game.’