The Australian developer Halfbrick is primarily known for its smash hit Fruit Ninja, but on November 16th the developer is bringing us a very different game called Shadows Remain ($1.99), an Augmented Reality thriller. As we talked about a few weeks back, Shadows Remain is hoping to push the gameplay possibilities of augmented reality and Apple’s ARKit by allowing players to control the game’s dynamic camera, shift perspectives, and solve various optical illusions. I’m hoping that Shadows Remain will be the first sign of AR-based gameplay maturing and becoming more than a gimmick. If the optical illusions idea works well, I can see this being an important moment in AR games.

Shadows Remain will use these AR ideas to tell a pretty creepy story about betrayal and neglect set across various time periods (which is probably where the optical illusions come in). The game will release as an episodic adventure, with the opening chapter releasing for free on November 16th and the rest of the episodes releasing within the span of a year. I’m excited to check this one out.

UPDATE: The game is out early, so go check it out since it’s free