Dragon Spotting
- Brand
- Disney
- Year
- 2016
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- AR & VR
- Agency
- The Zoo At Google
- With
- Monks
Objective
Disney wanted to promote the theatrical release of "Pete's Dragon" (August 2016) by giving kids and families a way to play with the film's premise — a boy's friendship with a dragon nobody else can see — before they ever bought a ticket. A secondary goal, pursued with partner Google, was to show off the Cloud Vision API in a real consumer product.
Solution
The player opens dragonspotting.com on a phone — no app to install. A quick animated intro explains the premise: Elliot the dragon is hiding somewhere nearby, and it's up to the player to track him down. The game names an everyday object — a couch, a door, a bike, the clouds, a bush — and sends the player off to find it at home or in the yard. On Android, they point their camera at the object and watch Elliot appear on top of it in AR; on iOS, they snap a photo or pull one from their camera roll and upload it to be checked. Guess right and Elliot materializes in the shot as if he were really in the room; guess wrong and they keep hunting. Stuck on an object they can't find, they can shake the phone for a new one — and once they've caught him on camera, they can share the photo.
- 1
The player opens dragonspotting.com on a phone browser and the game loads instantly, with no app to install.
- 2
Short animated cards explain the premise: Elliot the dragon is hiding nearby, disguised behind everyday objects, and the player must track him down.
- 3
The game names a common object to find — a table, a couch, a door, clouds, plants, bushes — and the player goes looking for it at home or in the neighborhood.
- 4
The player points their phone's live camera at the object (Android) or takes or uploads a photo of it (iOS), and the site checks whether the image matches the requested object, accepting reasonable variants such as a sofa or futon for "couch."
- 5
A correct match makes Elliot appear composited into the shot, as if the dragon were really there in the room; an unrecognized object sends the player back to keep looking, and shaking the phone skips to a new object when the requested one isn't available.
- 6
The player can share the resulting photo of Elliot they found.
