Nominees 2025

Jan & Dave AR/AI Mirror

Jan & Dave Studios, Hamburg

The Jan & Dave AR/AI Mirror is the first turnkey AR system for events, showrooms, and trade fairs that seamlessly combines AR and AI technologies. We offer both ready-to-use standard filters and fully customized AR/AI experiences.

AR Features: Body tracking with gesture recognition for interactive AR elements, mini-games, or classic filters.
AI Features: Image and video generation based on the live camera feed—for immersive brand experiences or visual simulations. In addition, AI-powered conversations with 3D avatars are possible, backed by a knowledge base for automated sales talks, product recommendations, or corporate and sustainability communication.

The system is fully automated, mobile, customizable with individual branding, and delivers measurable KPIs such as dwell time and engagement. For AI advisors, preferences and purchase readiness can also be tracked.

More at jan-and-dave.com/ar-spiegel

Samsung Game App “Trails of Wonder”

headraft GmbH, Hamburg

Challenge: Gen Z is tech-savvy, connected to nature, and seeks authentic experiences. How can Samsung convince them that the Galaxy S24 is the perfect companion?

Idea: Real outdoor adventures meet virtual worlds. Nature becomes the playground, interacting seamlessly with the smartphone.

Solution: With the AR app Trails of Wonder, players embark on an immersive adventure across green spaces and specially curated Komoot trails, guided by a generative AI. Interactive AR elements blur the boundaries between game and reality. Trails of Wonder makes stepping outside exciting again—and positions Samsung as the ideal partner for Gen Z.

Virtual Exhibit XR for Audi

SXCES Communication AG, Hamburg

The Virtual Exhibit XR by SXCES leverages the Apple Vision Pro to open up new perspectives for conveying complex vehicle technologies. Based on original CAD data, the application delivers highly realistic 3D experiences that make technical concepts such as thermal management, energy distribution, and drive architecture immersive and easy to understand.

What previously required physical exhibits, costly transport, and high material expenses can now be presented entirely digitally. The XR experience appeals both to expert audiences and media-savvy target groups, and can be flexibly deployed for technology training, press events, or trade fairs.

A particularly forward-looking feature: the ability to use the application synchronously across multiple devices, independent of location—an innovation that enables more efficient communication and sustainable knowledge transfer in the technological context of the mobility transition.

DZT-Mixed Reality App “UNESCO-Welterbestätten in Deutschland”

Deutsche Zentrale für Tourismus e.V., Frankfurt am Main

The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) promotes travel to Germany worldwide on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

Following the success of the Nature Experience in Germany app, we have now developed a new app focused on culture. The goal: to present the richness of Germany as a cultural travel destination by showcasing its 54 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The content is delivered immersively and interactively, largely through Mixed Reality. Shortly after the launch of the Meta Quest 3, we decided to realize this Mixed Reality project in order to leverage the strengths of this relatively new technology and to inspire customers.

The app is used globally at numerous events hosted by our international offices and partners and is also available in the Meta App Store. Customers are highly enthusiastic, and the app has received top ratings. Particular attention has been given to accessibility, ensuring an inclusive experience for all users.

Peak Rhythm

Zeitlos Interactive GmbH, Wien

Peak Rhythm is a VR rhythm-climbing game where players ascend vertical routes on the backs of their mechs in sync with the music. Blending rhythm and precision in a PvP hyper-sport, success comes from mastering movement and staying on beat. Inspired by Solarpunk aesthetics and Hyperpop energy, Peak Rhythm offers a competitive experience where music drives momentum. Built by a student team as their first commercial title, the game combines innovative grip mechanics, dynamic multiplayer modes, and immersive beatmapping refined through extensive testing and feedback. Players race in real time, reacting to custom-designed rhythmic patterns while tracking opponents’ progress mid-climb. The project began in a university setting and evolved through public showcases, pitch events, and collaboration with Austrian musicians. With its fresh mechanics and bold audiovisual identity, Peak Rhythm aims to push VR rhythm games into new creative territory.

BALLEE

Christoph Spinger, Berlin

Ballee is the first Mixed Reality game for Meta Quest 3 based on real-time ball tracking. Instead of virtual controllers, Ballee uses real objects. The game ball is physically thrown, kicked, or hit and tracked in the room—creating a direct, intuitive play style that combines physical activity with digital gameplay.

Whether it’s soccer, handball, or remote-controlled cars with a ball on the roof—Ballee demonstrates how Mixed Reality with physical objects is not only fun but can also be put to meaningful use.

Elven Arrows

2Sync GmbH, Potsdam

Elven Arrows combines immersive gameplay with innovative Mixed Reality technology that automatically integrates the entire physical environment—including walls, furniture, and objects—into the virtual experience.

The game transforms your living space into an elevated virtual vantage point: an elven watchtower. From here, players defend magical crystals against oncoming enemies in Free-Roam VR mode, either solo or together with friends in co-located multiplayer.

Its auto-adaptive technology instantly adjusts to any room, seamlessly integrating physical structures into the level design. The result is a free, intuitive movement experience without artificial boundaries—a game that playfully merges VR and reality.

Hier und Damals

Philipp Quast, Reinbek

How do we remember places of Nazi terror that no longer exist? This is the central question explored by “Here and Then” (Hier und Damals). The focus is on the Nordmark labor camp in Kiel, which has almost completely disappeared from the cityscape today.

The application uses the immersive power of VR while treating the site and its history with great sensitivity. Its approach is research-driven: only what is historically documented from three specific locations within the camp is reconstructed. The gaps themselves are intentional, highlighting the fact that we do not know everything. Testimonies from survivors, archival documents, and photographs are interwoven with the reconstructed spaces—allowing history to emerge from fragments.

The guiding principle is “journey of discovery rather than time travel.” The virtual tour lasts around ten minutes and covers a prisoner barracks, the stable where inmates were tortured, and the camp’s detention cells. In this way, a dark chapter of history becomes accessible again—ensuring it is not forgotten.

eVeeR – Educational Virtual Environment for Epidemic Response.

Studio Monstrum, Hamburg

eVeeR is a virtual reality training program designed to prepare professionals for deploying mobile laboratories in outbreak situations, particularly in resource-limited or otherwise challenging environments. The application is structured around three learning objectives, each addressed in a dedicated module:

Module 1: Participants set up a laboratory in compliance with biosafety regulations, gaining a practical understanding of mobile lab concepts and setup procedures.

Module 2: Learners explore a laboratory environment to identify various biosafety and biosecurity hazards, building awareness of potential risks.

Module 3: Participants work through operational workflows in a mobile laboratory, simulating the pressures of a demanding real-world setting. The project is developed by Studio Monstrum in partnership with the Bernard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM) under the German Biosecurity Programme.

UNHOME – Überleben auf der Straße

Curious Company GmbH X Gobanyo gGmbH, Hamburg

UNHOME lets us experience homelessness like never before. For the first time, we see it through our own eyes. This VR experience offers an emotional shift in perspective that redefines learning: imagine losing your job. Over time, you also lose your support network, your savings – and eventually, every bit of hope.
You are homeless.

UNHOME delivers decision-based storytelling with realistic consequences.

Developed together with the NGO GoBanyo, UNHOME is rooted in authentic expertise and combines immersive technology with social education. Accompanied by teaching materials, it is successfully used in educational settings. Studies conducted by Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences confirm its strong impact: especially young people reflect on their own life situations through the experience and gain a deep understanding of the issue.

In this way, UNHOME becomes a powerful tool for education, awareness, and social change.

lichtung

Cyril Fischer, Ludwigsburg

You enter a calm yet unfamiliar world, lying dormant as you arrive. As you explore its surroundings, the world gradually opens up, revealing its light. The more you engage with it, the more you become enveloped in a soothing yet lively awakening, full of surprises.

FLOAT

Mouseworks, Neu-Ulm

As part of our third-semester project, I collaborated with five fellow students to develop the Mixed Reality game FLOATfor the Meta Quest 2.

FLOAT combines immersive hand-tracking controls with a fantastical game world inhabited by mystical creatures—the Pooki—who live on floating islands. The goal is to use intuitive gesture interactions to collect movement data, which a start-up can then use to support the development of smart prosthetics. This data is analyzed with AI and translated into usable movement patterns.

The project bridges innovative game design with social impact, demonstrating how playful experiences can contribute to medical research.

Home Overlay – Smart Home Control in Mixed Reality

Mirco Hülsemann, Hamburg

Home Overlay is a Mixed Reality application for the Apple Vision Pro that allows Smart Home devices to be controlled via Home Assistant directly within the physical space. Instead of using a PC or smartphone, light switches, sensor displays, or calendar information are represented as spatially anchored control panels. These can be flexibly placed around the room, permanently saved, and aligned with real walls.

The application combines native SwiftUI elements with Unity-based 3D interfaces. Connection to the Home Assistant instance is handled locally via a REST API—without any cloud dependency—allowing Smart Home devices to be controlled in real time.

Home Overlay was developed as part of a Master’s program in Digital Reality at HAW Hamburg, is available for free in the App Store, and has been released as open-source software.

Palast der Erinnerung

CyberRäuber GbR, Düsseldorf

The Palace of the Republic still exists today—in memories and stories carried by some people. Yet memories are unreliable, fragmented, and often romanticized.

This installation, exploring the mutable nature of memory, consists of three elements:

• A large-scale video projection on three screens places visitors at the center of a visualized palace universe.

• A photo table offers a closer look at individual images.

• In a 20-minute Mixed Reality experience, up to ten participants interact both with one another and with real and generated palace objects in dialogue.

Visitors are invited to leave behind their own recollections—scenes from memory, impressions, or small stories about the Palace of the Republic—either written on slips of paper or spoken into a telephone. These recollections transform into images of a possible past, present, or future of a palace that, in this form, never truly existed.

🔗 Palace of Memory – Humboldt Forum

Arena Defender

bright! GmbH, Maintal

Red Bull challenged us to create an immersive stadium experience that engaged all visitors using cutting-edge technology. With Arena Defender, we created a fast-paced Mixed Reality game played during third breaks. Using the Red Bulls app, fans design virtual balls that are launched onto the ice, while four MR-equipped players try to defend them. A central portal, moving targets, lasers, and a Pachinko-inspired entry system add excitement and fairness. Real-time interactions and customization turn fans into active participants. Loyalty points and prize incentives deepen brand connection, creating a unique, emotionally engaging experience that extends beyond the event itself.

Die Heinzel zu Köln / Heinzelexpress

TimeRide GmbH, Köln

The Heinzel Express began with an unusual challenge: the Cologne Christmas market was packed, and the only free space left was a fire lane. Building a fixed installation? Impossible. The solution was a mobile attraction—a vintage bus completely transformed inside into an immersive experience.

Within this compact space unfolds a full-scale VR adventure with haptic feedback, where image, sound, and motion work in perfect sync. The technology fades into the background—what counts is the experience: visitors dive straight into the Cologne Heinzelmännchen legend as if they were part of the story themselves.

Its placement proved to be a stroke of luck—central, highly visible, and in a location otherwise unusable. From this structural constraint emerged a flexible format that not only works at the Christmas market but can also travel to other events, bringing the Heinzel tale to life in a truly unique way.

Darker Sky VR

Shape-Shift Studio GmbH, Hamburg

This VR application, developed as part of the EU project Darker Sky, visualizes and helps plan different lighting scenarios for public pathways.

The experience recreates two locations in Hamburg with high accuracy: a section of the Altonaer Strandweg along the Elbe River and the Bullnwisch cycle path (Sülldorfer Knick) on the city’s outskirts. For lighting simulation, users can choose from several adjustable lamp models with their characteristic light distribution curves, as well as modify time of day and weather conditions.

The tool not only provides immersive visualization but also serves to identify which lighting setups pedestrians find most comfortable.

At its current stage, the application is an advanced prototype. Planned features include virtual cyclists and pedestriansmoving along the paths, a visualization of lumen values on surfaces, and even an animal view that simulates how the environment might appear to creatures such as bats.

SONA – VR designed by blind people

SONA, Köln

SONA is a virtual reality experience designed to be perceived entirely through sound—developed from the perspective of blind people. Instead of following visual stimuli, players navigate an 80 m² VR space using headphones, a microphone, motion sensors, and sensory shoes. They hear their footsteps on virtual surfaces and orient themselves through virtual echolocation. The game is played in complete darkness—driven by movement, VR-based voice recognition, and hearing. Since 2024, we have been experimenting with VR formats inspired by the everyday knowledge of blind individuals.

In early 2025, commissioned by the Cologne Association for the Blind, we created a full adventure game co-developed with 19 blind and visually impaired game designers. They crafted the stories, sounds, and voices of the experience—and during its presentation, they became live guides, interacting with visitors of the VR game and accompanying them through the virtual world.

Out of Nowhere

Kris Hofmann, Wien

Out of Nowhere is a 10 min standalone VR experience (interactive docufiction, available in English and German). The piece gently explores how preserving alluvial forests, marshes and wetlands can help us face the challenges of an ever angrier, unpredictable climate. Told through the eyes of Anna, a lifelong resident of Hallein in Austria, the experience flows from a personal memory of the devastating floods that hit Europe in 2021 to reveal how reconnecting with nature may be key to protecting ourselves going forward. Every month we hear about yet another devastating extreme weather event—in Nigeria, Pakistan, or Texas, but also close to home, with severe floods in Austria and Germany. Each one of these events carries stories of personal loss, but also of inspiring resilience. If we can come together in the aftermath of a disaster, shouldn’t we be able to do so in preparation? Restoring healthy riverine ecosystems isn’t just good ecology—it’s self-preservation.

XR-IT – Non-Local Virtual Production “Cat Content”

Trans Realities Lab / Design Academy Eindhoven, Niederlande

The Trans Realities Lab at the Design Academy Eindhoven developed the XR-IT technology for non-local virtual production, linking various motion capture systems with the Meta Quest Pro’s tracking and face capture inside Unreal Engine.

This setup enabled actors in the Netherlands and Finland to perform together simultaneously for the short film Cat Content, which explores the concept of non-locality in quantum physics in an emotional and artistic way.

D-Day: The Camera Soldier

TARGO, France

‘D-Day: The Camera Soldier’ is a groundbreaking interactive documentary by TARGO, in collaboration with TIME Studios, made exclusively for the Apple Vision Pro. Eighty years after the end of World War II, this immersive documentary uncovers the untold story of Sgt. Richard Taylor—one of the first to land on Omaha Beach, not with a rifle but with a camera. His mission: to capture the Allied invasion so the world could witness the liberation of Europe. Decades later, his daughter Jennifer receives an unexpected message that launches her on a journey across time and continents to reconnect with the father she never truly knew. This experience lays the foundation for a new generation of cross-media documentaries. Through his restored photos and films, history is brought to life in stunning immersive 3D—transforming memory into an experience you can step into.

Human Within

Signal Space Lab, Kanada

Human Within is an innovative live-action VR film that explores the profound influence of AI and advanced technology on society, highlighting potential misuse. Combining 360° footage with interactive Point Clouds and puzzles, the film’s branching storyline requires real user decisions, leading to different endings. Human Within is a conceptual exploration of how technology profoundly influences human identity, exploring the ethical and personal impacts of technological progress through the immersive lens of virtual reality. Human Within unfolds in a modern world where Nyla, a cyber engineer, and her sister Linh, are both employed at Forward Industries. Together, they pioneer a groundbreaking supercomputer by harnessing the human brain’s processing power. However, when Nyla seeks to disengage from the project, both sisters are detained, compelled to continue their work amidst suspicions of their employer’s hidden motives.