LUNA
CASE STUDY
Studio / Portfolio / Chester Zoo
Chester Zoo × Augit

Luna's
Lost Spell

WebAR Location Trail AR Games Halloween
The brief

Make the whole zoo
the game board.

Chester Zoo needed an interactive Halloween experience that got kids physically moving through the zoo. The brief was to build something AR-powered that rewarded exploration across their estate, tied to the Halloween event Luna's Lost Spell.

Instead of a single AR moment at one station, we made the zoo itself the game board. Six locations, six AR encounters, six letters that together spell a magic word. Complete all six and you unlock a physical gift from the team.

No app install. Any phone. Any browser. The experience starts from a QR code on a printed trail map handed out at the entrance.

Client
Chester Zoo × Augit
Platform
WebAR · In-browser, no app required
Role
Concept · Full WebAR development · RBKAVIN. Studio × Augit
Campaign
Halloween event trail: Luna's Lost Spell
Year
2022
Deliverable
6-station WebAR trail with image tracking, AR mini games, and a reward mechanic for completing all stops.
In the experience

Six stations.
Six letters. One spell.

Luna's Lost Spell physical trail map for Chester Zoo WebAR Halloween trail The trail map
Chester Zoo WebAR animal scan to reveal magic letter
Chester Zoo WebAR upside-down jellyfish station scan result
Video
WebAR Trail
Click to play
Process

The zoo is the game board.
The map is the UI.

01
The zoo is the game board
We mapped 6 distinct locations across the zoo's real footprint. Each stop had to earn its place: the animal there connected to the letter it unlocked, so the route felt deliberate rather than arbitrary.
02
No app, no barrier
WebAR meant kids scan a QR at each station and it opens in browser. No downloads, no friction. The experience had to work on whatever phone the family had on the day, including older handsets.
03
Six stations, six different interactions
Using both front and back camera across different stops kept each encounter feeling like a new puzzle. Image tracking for the animal scans, face-cam AR games for others: variety was the pacing mechanism.
The result

A Halloween trail that sent
families across the entire zoo.

6 AR stations across the zoo estate
WebAR No app install: works in any browser on any phone
3K+ Kids completed the trail during Halloween week
Physical space becomes the UI when you design around it
The trail map replaced all onboarding. Kids knew where to go because the pamphlet told them, not the software. Good spatial design means the environment handles the navigation.
WebAR removes the biggest drop-off point
No app install means no moment where a parent says they don't have time for that. The experience starts at scan. Every second of friction before the first AR moment costs users.
Completionist mechanics land differently in physical space
The pull of just one more stop is stronger after you've already walked across the zoo five times. Progress already invested makes completion feel inevitable, not optional.
Varying the interaction type prevents AR fatigue
Six identical scanning moments would have felt like repetition by stop three. Six different camera modes, image tracking, face-cam games, back-camera AR, made the variety the pacing.
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