At Vienna’s Belvedere museum, history isn’t something you just look at, it’s something you explore, solve, draw, and bring to life. With The Fantastic Palastics: Mission Museum, the Belvedere is inviting kids and families into a story-driven, tech-powered adventure where imagination meets innovation thanks to the power of augmented reality.

The Forge the Future Game Jam brought our global developer community together for six inspiring weeks of creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Now it’s time to celebrate the incredible projects that emerged. With support from HTC VIVERSE, this was our biggest prize pool yet, including a unique opportunity to join the VIVERSE Creator Program. 

Throughout the challenge, we hosted a full slate of community programming to support and inspire participants, from our Info + Ideation kickoff session to live workshops, 1:1 tech support hours, and the debut of our powerful new AI Asset Lab tool. Developers arrived with bold ideas, creative mechanics, and meaningful storytelling, creating projects that spanned genres, causes, and continents.

Judged on gameplay depth, creativity, technical execution, and visual polish, today we’re thrilled to unveil the winners of the Forge the Future Game Jam. Let’s dive in!

The Pollution Piano is a location-based AR experience that transforms real-time pollution data into live music. Built in 8th Wall Studio by artist and creative technologist Doddz, it is launching during London Climate Week with a powerful mission: to help people see—and hear—the invisible.

At select outdoor locations in 12 cities worldwide, users can trigger a virtual piano performance that reflects the air quality around them. As conditions change, so does the tone of the music: clear skies generate light and melodic solos, while polluted air brings heavier, more urgent compositions. It’s a poetic mix of data, AI, music, and AR all delivered in the browser.

We caught up with Doddz to learn what inspired the project, how it was built, and how 8th Wall Studio helped turn pollution into performance.

When a product jumps off the pack, moves in 3D, or lets you interact right from your phone’s browser, something shifts. You're not just consuming a brand experience, you’re living it. With WebAR, all it takes is a scan of a QR code to give consumers access to a brand activation that turns them into players. 

Here are five brand campaigns that use 3D and AR to do just that.

Everything Quiz is a unique 3D browser-based game built in Niantic Studio that transforms the world around you into a quiz. Just point your camera, snap a pic, and get a context-aware multiple-choice question—anything from the objects in your room to the books on your shelf can become a brain teaser. It’s a simple, clever idea made possible with real-time screenshot capture, AI-powered question generation, and smooth UI built entirely in the browser.

We caught up with Ethan to learn how this interactive experience came together, how AI was integrated, and how his team balanced accessibility, technical complexity, and game design to bring this vision to life.

We’re thrilled to share some exciting news from Long Beach: 8th Wall Studio has been named Best Developer Tool at the 2025 Auggie Awards at Augmented World Expo USA! 🏆

This recognition is more than a win for us, it’s a celebration of the incredible community of developers, creators, and builders who are shaping the future of immersive technology alongside us.

8th Wall Studio has officially moved out of beta! With today's general release, Studio becomes a fully supported, production grade platform that makes building 3D and XR content faster, smarter, and more scalable than ever.

Along with this milestone, we are excited to announce the addition of a number of new features and enhancements, including AI-powered asset generation, native app export and more. 

Whether you're creating interactive WebAR experiences, building a 3D app for mobile, or prototyping the next big idea, 8th Wall now gives you everything you need to move from concept to launch in record time.

And yes, with ourupdated pricing, even the free plan includes access to these new features so you can start creating right away.

8th Wall Studio continues to evolve with each release, bringing fresh features to empower creators. With our latest update, we’re excited to introduce Prefabs, enabling you to create reusable, customizable game templates that streamline and scale your development.

The Address Book is an educational WebAR experience developed in 8th Wall Studio by USC student Jinglin Jingan and Professor Robert Hernandez. Built in collaboration with the ONE Archives at USC Libraries, this immersive project spotlights the first edition of Bob Damron’s Address Book, a 1960s-era travel guide that documented safe and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ+ individuals across the U.S.

Inspired by its real-world counterpart—often called the “Green Book for queer people”—this browser-based experience brings history to your fingertips. Users can flip through a digitized version of the guide using touch and audio-based interactions. As they explore, they’ll uncover original listings from the book’s pages, listen to oral history from ONE Archives director Joseph Hawkins, and engage directly with a piece of LGBTQ+ history that’s long been overlooked.

We caught up with Jinglin to learn how this project came to life using 8th Wall Studio, how it was structured, and how it’s helping bring queer history to wider audiences through interactive storytelling.

We’re officially in the final stretch of the Forge the Future Game Jam, and if you’re building a browser-based game with Niantic Studio, now’s the time to power up your skills. To help developers of all levels make the most of this opportunity, we hosted a series of expert-led webinars throughout May—and the full lineup is now available to stream on-demand.

Whether you’re refining your project or just getting started, these sessions are packed with practical insights and strategic tips to help you build your best game.