Jungle Squad Delivering business impact with AR innovation.

Imaginakery is a brand new business that launched this year. Its first brand, ‘Jungle Squad’, debuted recently, kicking off with an amazing trading card game and a 20 episode animation series for YouTube — a world of adventure where kids can collect, trade, and play with their favourite animal heroes. Each character in the Squad has a rich backstory and unique skills, encouraging storytelling, strategy, and imaginative play.

To take the experience beyond the physical, we set out to build an immersive, narrative-driven world that brings Jungle Squad to life through animation and augmented reality technology. Our vision was to create a seamless ecosystem where the physical cards connect with a digital experience, giving kids the chance to step into the jungle, follow their heroes’ adventures, and become part of the story themselves.

To activate the experience, players simply scan a character card with their device, using the card as a tracker. In an instant, an AR jungle scene appears, bringing their character to life front and centre.

The character performs a signature intro move before the game begins. The app then randomly selects an opponent from the grid of characters — including the Squad’s arch-enemies, the RUIN Corporation!

Gameplay 

Employing a stat-vs-stat game mechanic, the game then plays out over three rounds, with players choosing one of ten characteristics to challenge their opponent — highest score wins!

Each time a card is scanned, players can add it to their digital collection, including all the character cards from both the Squad and RUIN Corporation, and also the function cards from the physical card game. This allows the app to act as a ‘digital wallet’ for kids’ growing collections and encourage repeat play.

By blending storytelling with interactive gameplay, we’ve created an experience that’s both exciting and fresh every single time.

Prototype

We began with a prototype, which helped Imaginakery secure product investment. We built a fully rigged Jungle Squad character and stitched video sequences together demonstrating how the AR experience would unfold. The prototype revealed an intuitive user experience that allowed kids to engage easily with AR for the first time. With the potential of the concept laid bare for stakeholders, Imaginakery gave us the green light for full product development.

User experience

Our UX team guaranteed the AR experience was clear and easy for children to use without supervision. By balancing visual design, storytelling, and functionality, we also created an experience that felt fun yet simple to navigate.

We optimised tracking to account for children’s unpredictable hand movements, which meant AR scenes could recover quickly if they lost their marker. This resilience was essential to maintaining engagement for younger users.