November 15, 2025
In the early stages of development, we experimented with using the phone’s digital compass to align the game’s internal coordinate system with the real world.
The idea was that when the game starts, the X-axis in Unity would point to true north, allowing all virtual objects to be properly aligned with real-world directions.
It made perfect sense — if the world of Reality Rift overlaps with ours, why not make sure everything is pointing the same way?
But in practice:
- Not all smartphones have a compass
- Even when they do, compass readings are often inaccurate or unstable
- Proper calibration is required — and most users won’t bother
So we decided to drop compass-based alignment entirely and switched to a more reliable system that works on any phone, regardless of its orientation or sensor suite.
Yes, really — did you know your smartphone probably has a real magnetic sensor inside?
That’s a magnetometer. It measures changes in the Earth’s magnetic field to tell you which way you’re facing.
But in reality… it’s not always reliable for games.
What we learned:
The compass isn’t a dependable anchor
It’s better to build systems that adapt to the player’s position than rely on absolute orientation
