Oliver Haslam on April 26, 2018, 6:39 am

Snapchat Brings AR Games To Its App With “Snappables”

While Apple is the king of augmented reality right now thanks to the arrival of ARKit, that does, of course, mean that developers can now also produce something pretty impressive.

Snapchat is the latest to do exactly that, building on its existing lenses by launching Snappables, lenses that are aimed at making it possible for users to play games from within the app.

Snapchat users will find Snappable lenses near the existing Snapchat Lenses in the aptly named Lens Carousel, so it’s highly unlikely that anyone will not spot their inclusion following today’s announcement.

All of the new lenses use augmented reality to place items on people in-frame, with some allowing users to make their friends look like they are part of 1960s bands or enjoying a party together. There are plenty more themes to choose from and the whole thing is controlled either via facial expressions or by using good old-fashioned touch and gesture based controls.

Snappables live right where Lenses do. Just choose one and get your game face on! Then, invite your friends to play along too. Some Snappables let you challenge friends to beat your high score, while others can invite them to multiplayer games!

Snap also points out that there will be new Snappable lenses added each and every week, hopefully, ensuring that the AR games will not grow too old before another batch are made available.

Snapchat continues to battle it out with Instagram as a place where images can be shared socially, and additions like Snappables are a good way of differentiating in an arena where Instagram has continued to grow. Snappables might not be for me, but I am sure plenty of teens will spend hours playing with each other via Snapchat.