“A game for those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind”…literally.
Back in October, Sony announced Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the long-awaited sequel to the 1995 Robin Williams classic—only this time staring Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan. Along with the new movie, Sony has developed a VR scavenger hunt called Jumanji: The VR Adventure, that gives fans an opportunity to venture off into the world of Jumanji.
What makes Jumanji: The VR Adventure stand out from other experiences is that this VR experience was built using Facebook’s WebVR framework called React VR. If you recall, Facebook announced and released React VR back in April, with the purpose of giving developers a way to easily build new WebVR experiences.
This means Jumanji: The VR Adventure – which was developed by Sony Pictures, Oculus, and co-developed by Avatar Labs along with the Facebook Creative Shop—can not only run on a VR headset, but it can also run on mobile phones, desktop computers and even on Facebook’s News Feed.
Check out what Dwayne Johnson had to say about Jumanji: The VR Adventure on his Facebook page.
In an interview with VRScout, Amir-Esmaeil Bozorgzadeh, co-founder of Virtuleap, a company focused on bringing WebVR experiences to the forefront, talked about how React VR integrations like this could change VR development.
“React VR enriches the landscape by offering developers with an expanded library and toolkit for creating WebVR content,” Bozorgzadeh said. “[This] eventually [opens] up one of the biggest online marketplaces and social networks to the emerging tech.”
Facebook recently conducted some testing of React VR experiences within its own newsfeed, creating what the social media company hopes to be a new interactive social media experience that grows beyond 360° videos, comments, or likes.
“The possibilities are huge should Facebook continue down this course—as WebVR is very much complementary to their foray as a vehicle for HTML5 content,” Bozorgzadeh said. “Social interactions in every digital shape and form can suddenly enjoy an additional dimension as an extension, rather than a disruption, to how they currently communicate and connect with friends and the world around them.”
For Sony Pictures, Jumanji: The VR Adventure becomes a promotional tool that isn’t limited to an audience of people who own a VR headset. Since it’s built on a React VR framework, it becomes a mechanism that, according to a blog post on the Oculus page, “could be easily accessed on a platform people use every day.”
“React VR, alongside other key frameworks like A-Frame by Mozilla, represents the only path to driving VR into the mainstream,” Bozorgzadeh said.
If you are interested in playing around with Facebook’s React VR framework, visit their Github page here.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will be in theaters on Dec. 20. Jumanji: The VR Adventure is also available now on WebVR-enabled browsers by visiting jumanji360.com and at the Gear VR store.
