Meet Declan Johnson, an innovative AR developer and a prominent member of the Niantic 8th Wall community. With a background in VR and game development, Declan has been a pivotal figure in creating gamified WebXR content for both marketing and educational purposes. His journey with Niantic 8th Wall began in 2021, and since then, he has become an expert in leveraging the platform's capabilities to build immersive and accessible AR experiences. 

Declan's passion lies in making AR more inclusive and inspiring others to join the XR space. Recently, he has been building with our new visual editor and web gaming engine, Niantic Studio,  to continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in WebXR. We caught up with Declan to learn more about his journey, his work with Niantic Studio so far, and his vision for the future of AR.

How were you introduced to 8th Wall?
I discovered Niantic 8th Wall in 2021 through the agency I was interning with at the time.  After the app store rejected a client's AR marketing experience weeks before the deadline, the agency found 8th Wall and built a successful experience on the platform. When I joined the company I was asked to become an 8th Wall specialist and from January 2021 to December 2023 I worked full time building 8th Wall experiences.

What would you say is your area of expertise?
I specialize in creating gamified WebXR content for marketing and educational purposes. My first real programming job was developing VR experiences for people around my college campus in Unity. When I started, there weren't many resources specifically for virtual reality, so I jumped into game development. I collaborated on VR game prototypes with a college friend, who now runs his own studio. This early experience laid the foundation for my work in XR development.

You've been working with the new Niantic Studio, what excites you the most about the new tool?

I am excited to start making more complicated games in Studio. I plan on continuing to gamify AR experiences, but I also really want to begin creating web games. I am excited to have a tool that allows me to do both of those things.

How do web-based capabilities help you bring AR to the real world? 
AR is awesome but it can be very inaccessible. People don't download apps, and headsets are still relatively niche. WebAR allows everyone who has a mobile phone to experience AR with a low barrier to entry. WebAR will give many people their first taste of XR and can be an amazing way to help them onboard into the technology.

What are your future goals with AR?  
I want to get as many people into AR as I can. I want to create experiences that are fun and familiar to people but also easy to use. I also want to help other developers get into the space. I believe the more people working on the tech, the further we will be able to push it.

What’s a recent project that left you feeling inspired?

My most recent Studio project is a gameplay inspired by side-scrolling games like  Flappy Bird called Dragon Dash. I have built this style game on a few different platforms and I wanted to see how easy it was to build something I am already familiar with on Studio.

To make a side-scrolling gameplay well you need to tweak and customize the physics in the game so this was a great way to test out Studio's new physics engine. I also plan to test the Face Effects and World Effects capabilities of Studio so I want to build different versions for each of those deployment methods.

Are you interested in creating a game similar to Dragon Dash? Join the Create & Play Developer Challenge and learn how to build using Niantic Studio!