ARBlox is closing down the company and they made their (mostly )APK files freely available on itch!
https://arblox.itch.io/
Cheers to the ARBlox guys! Awesome you gave the startup dream a shot!
I was indeed very much part of the initial drivning force with Uffe on a sparetime basis. The initial idea was to do.. well basically to do, what is now referred to as the metaverse! An online social creative space accessible from everything from VR, AR, desktop and mobile devices. I still remember the day I pitched the idea to Uffe (friend from the napnok days). His mind looked totally blown!
Honestly it was just a quick pitch idea I came up with the day before our meeting. And I had other ideas in the sleeve I'd rather work on. But the excitement of the new idea moment and Uffes enthusiasm was winning me over. So why not give it a shot! Both knowing it was a super high risk project.
We made this super early attempt (visionary/dreamy perhaps) starting out with the ARBlox app back in 2017/18 on mobile when the first AR SDK (ARCore) for Android landed. We built ARBlox with social sharing feed, creative buliding tools, physics interaction when walking around a room and what not, in an accessible package starting out with mobile. Me and Uffe had a lot of fun working on such a leap of faith project, It was a really interesting and creative challenge. Uffe even put in multiplayer in later on mobile.
A bit later we got Jeppe on board to boost the business side of things.
We got as far a being part of the Accelerace program. But already there I had doubts about my involvement in the project. And after seeing the early sort of launch reactions on the first launch demo where people really didn't pick up on the concept. Mobile outward facing AR being a new weird alien thing for the broad masses. They just didn't connect with it in that form. You could also say the Accelerace experience accelerated my doubt even further. (Also I have yet to spot anybody!?! in the wild using outward facing AR functionality on mobile phones since the introduction on iOS and Android year ago)
So after the initial boost of creative power, my interest in the project was veining and it was hard to find real true heartfelt motivation to work on the project on the side.
Also bringing more people on a project also brings more complexities. Jeppe wanted to take it in a direction of releasing a multitude of small AR apps based on the main AR apps technology. With a focus on a more casual games/F2P angle. Totally makes sense in the mobile market. But I honestly just really didn't feel it.
Then suddenly I also found the love of my life! <3 (now future wife) And wanted to take my time and priorities there (besides kiddo priorities and a new full time job), so I pulled out of the project, perhaps at an inconvenient time.
Afterwards Uffe and Jeppe managed to release a bunch of AR titles. Getting a bit of funding here and there. Though eventually leading to not focusing on the AR part anymore and trying to give some other projects like the The Door and Slide Puzzle a chance. And sadly finally leading to this eventual conclusion, many lessons learned!
Thank you for giving my crazy idea a moonshot! It was fun while it lasted! Even after I pulled out of the project early. Love you guys! <3
Also Uffe and Jeppe has been doing super fine in their respective new jobs for a long while now. No worries there whatsoever.
The website will probably be alive for some time still. But not forever.
http://arblox.com/
Remembering ARBlox 🕯🕯🕯🕯
Translation
I think he managed to complete all missions that (dad)weekend.