Fact or Fantasy is a mixed-reality experience designed to connect family and friends through the reinvention of the traditional board game. Commissioned by Air New Zealand, the goal of the project was to showcase New Zealand as a holiday destination using a Magic Leap experience.

When it comes to inflight entertainment, Air New Zealand is a world leader. It wanted to take this to the next level with a mixed reality game that promoted its home country.

Fact or Fantasy augments a physical 3D game board with visually-impressive virtual elements including a host, competitive quiz questions and a cast of CG characters all designed and delivered by the creative studio.

It needed to be visually-impressive, immersive and put together in a way that allowed it to be moved to multiple locations around the globe.

Fact or Fantasy consisted of a physical board which became the arena for a new kind of board game – one that participants were led through by a host of digital animated characters and objects including a talking Kiwi bird, whales that jump out of the board like it’s the ocean and an Air New Zealand plane that flies above the game.

As the creative idea slowly developed into an augmented reality board game, the Magic Leap platform became the obvious choice.

A design studio in New Zealand started working on the physical props while we began creating the digital augmentations that would bring it to life. The creative studio’s industry-leading experience in CG images let us introduce the best way to bridge the physical and digital to make the mixed-reality experience as good as possible.