Sony has partnered up with smart playground pioneer Biba Ventures to create a mobile game spinoff for the upcoming Hotel Transylvania 3 movie, Hotel Transylvania: Crazy Cruise, that’s meant to get both kids and parents up and going and uses augmented reality to help in that goal. The game is meant to be played at a playground, and has some in-game bonus content that can be used if a playground happens to have Biba equipment present. The core of the game revolves around parents and kids traversing in-game obstacles together by going through real ones. The physical activity is broken up by small mini-games on the phone. The aim is to restore monster relics to their rightful places on a number of islands.
The events of the game are meant to parallel the movie, which will be out on Friday, July 13. The storyline is fairly simple; Drac and his brood are out on a vacation, and the parents and offspring decide to pair off and explore monster-inhabited islands with the goal of restoring lost relics and helping out the locals. The game will start out with a character selector for both the kid and the parent, then ask you what playground equipment is around. After that and a short intro, the game will prompt both kids and parents to use a given piece of playground equipment to simulate traversing the in-game environment. Some small actions take place on the phone, such as the parent acting out a trap and having the kid free them or the parent and child pulling a lever at the same time on the screen. Progress far enough, and you’ll retrieve a relic. When it’s all said and done, you’ll use your camera to seek out where the relic is supposed to be in an AR overlay on the playground, then put it back in its proper place.
The game is currently live in the Play Store for only 99 cents, though Sony’s press release says that the official price is $3.99, which means that those interested should make haste to use the Google Play button below and save $3.00. It’s not just for kids and parents, of course; any fans of the movie could check out the game for hints of the storyline before release, and it could easily be played alone or with a friend, if you don’t happen to be a parent.
