A location-based experience created by Koryn Wicks that combines gaming, storytelling and dance in a journey to the “Otherside” . “Ghosts in the Machine: The Old Zoo” takes place in LA’s Griffith Park.
Project Details
Role: Lead Developer and Interaction Designer
Development Platform: Unity
Published on: Mobile
Programming Language: C#
Features: Location Based AR, Voice Recognition, Voice Recording
Inspiration & Concept
Koryn first brought her idea for a location-based AR ghost story to me back in 2022, and we worked together to create the first iteration of the project.
For this current iteration, Koryn completely overhauled the story and made space for a deeper level of interactivity.
The story takes place in Griffith park, where you find a phone that belongs to an amateur medium named Phoebe. She is trapped in the “otherside” and need your help to recovery her memories and find her way out. The experience guides you to 5 different locations around the park as the story unfolds.
Development Process
The project includes the use of simple voice recognition (powered by Wit.ai), which is woven into the story to allow you to answer some of Phoebe’s questions.
At one point, Phoebe asks you to send her a voice message recording of your name. You are also prompted to send the spelling of it via text. Both entries are captured and used in different ways. Your voice gets replayed a key moments and becomes part of the soundscape (thanks to Chris Porter’s amazing sound design) as the same progresses. The first letter of your name gets transformed into a talisman that is wielded as a projectile weapon to fend of the mysterious monster.
The location-based AR functionality is handled with Niantic Spatial. Koryn went to the park, scanned the locations with the Niantic app, and uploaded it to my account, enabling me to use the meshes in Unity to accurately place the 3D models.
Initially, users were guided to each location with the help of Niantic maps, a GPS enabled mapping system that allows you to mark locations. However, Maps was sunset in late 2025, so as a workaround we implemented static maps with the locations marked off. We hope to find another solution to bring back the GPS live guidance in the future.