Dragon Spotting is an AR game that uses Google Cloud Vision to play hide-and-seek with Elliot the Dragon.

The mobile web game was created for the promotion of Pete’s Dragon — Disney’s 2016 remake of the 1977 classic. Dragon Spotting challenges players to find Elliot behind various everyday objects in the real world, such as a couch or door.

The game taps into the magic of Google Cloud Vision to analyse and identify the objects captured by the player. When the identified object is a match, Elliott appears before you as if he was right there in the room.

The innovative breakthrough was using Google Cloud Vision image recognition—a technology designed primarily for identifying and classifying images for search—as a creative tool. With it, we turned everyday living room objects into triggers that revealed Elliot in a virtual game of virtual hide-and-seek.

Kids just had to hold the camera steady and Cloud Vision did the rest. The image recognition technology was integrated so seamlessly that the responses were in real time. It works so well that it’s able to distinguish items in any standard living room, whether it’s a couch, door or television.

The impressive tech is completely hidden by the illusion of the experience. There’s no configuration, no tech screens, just pure wonderment from start to finish.

Pete’s Dragon grossed more than twice its production budget, bringing in $143.7 million against a budget of $65 million.

Pete’s Dragon became the best-selling film in the U.S. when it was released on home media, topping the video sales charts in its first week.

THE VERGE: “There couldn’t be a more fitting way to promote the new film. [The] mixing of a virtual character with real world environments is a perfect description of modern-day AR, and the plot of Pete's Dragon specifically revolved around that theme.”

FWA of the Month Runner-up (85 points)

One Show Mobile Finalist (TBA)

Webby Nominee (TBA)

Our aim was to achieve a magical mix of impressive tech and child-friendly design that would essentially hide the technical wizardry going on behind the curtains.

We wanted kids to stay in the fantasy of searching for their invisible dragon friend, who was hiding in their own house.

By bonding with Elliot in a way that is both playful and similar to the central premise of the film, we could let Pete’s Dragon steal the hearts and minds of a whole new generation.

To make Dragon Spotting as simple to play as possible, we opted for a web app that runs in any mobile browser without the need to download a native app.

Last year, Disney released its long anticipated remake of the 1977 classic Pete’s Dragon. For the promotion of this film, Disney wanted something just as magical as the film itself.

The essence of the strategic brief was “believe and see,” which is thematically central to the film: Pete can see Elliot the Dragon while others can’t, because Pete believes. We wondered, what if kids anywhere believed—could we supply the magic to help them see Elliot, too?