Current VR Game Design Flaws!

[getnamo]

@BAP;239897

For many years game designers have tackled the art of game design by using subtle and unsubtle triggers to lead the player though our levels. Most likely through repetition of objects or patterns, in your face signs with flashing arrows, or UI indicators. It all boils down to leading the player down a critical narrative path. With the dawn of VR that has changed. We now need to embrace the openness that VR can provide and let player’s experience our worlds on their own terms, discovering, exploring, & interacting with our games in new innovative ways. This creates the “presence” everyone is searching for! The biggest hurdle and problem keeping us from accomplishing this task is the player’s actual physical gaming space. It will never equal the game world on a 1:1 scale. We as VR pioneers can not force our player’s to have to move furniture to play our games. We can not rely on software solutions, sight direction & duration for movement, and algorithms that attempt to fake distances walked in the virtual world vs steps taken in the physical world. None of these solutions are simple enough to work 100% of the time, every time, and none are accessible enough for even the most casual of gamers. That being said, I would like to propose a new game design strategy around a simple object in gaming that’s been around since it’s creation. THE ANALOG STICK!
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There are some good design ideas that you propose, but without simulating some form of acceleration in sync with your analog stick motion, it will induce motion sickness in all but the hardened VR users. You can get around this a bit by making motions slow, but it won’t have the same level of dynamic interactivity I believe VR should have. Something like what Patim has proposed could work very well for locomotion without motion sickness.

@MrScratch;240313

If I am understanding you correctly you are talking about a setup similar to Trespasser (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x-3NnhN7Fis) correct? I know from past experience most people that played this at my teen center many years ago didn’t enjoy it much as it was alot more complicated then the current games of it’s time but I always felt that setup had pretty good potential. Even more when in a stereo environment.

Never fully understood the Trespasser hate, when I was younger I spent way too much time in the lost world. The city level was an especially good example of what an exciting sandbox could be: full with dinosaurs, basketballs and puzzles paced with a soothing audio narrative exposing the back story. A modern VR trespasser would do very well in my opinion.

@MrScratch;240313

At the end of the day though I think it honestly boils down to what type of project you are gunning for. There is more to building an Oculus project then just calling it VR. It has to be an experience, standard 3d gaming immersion or a full blow simulation (Edit: Or a hybrid of the last two). Experiences fit your first two visual examples quite well. 3D immersion will probably be played on a game pad similar to what you currently see implemented by default in U4.

I agree this bit, except for using the game pad for locomotion as a basis.

@MrScratch;240313

The simulations on the other hand are a completely different story. You need independent arm tracking with something like the Razer Hydra / Sixsense / wiimote. Player movement from some sort of leg based controller (there’s a few in development) but worse case scenero the game pads themselves or a dance dance revolution pad with player movement tailored to it. Heavy dynamic audio bass, not that headphone nonsense and possibly a dynamic fan for airflow. That would cover sound, sight and to some degree touch. Smell and taste are extremely important but those are things we should probably tackle significantly down the road.

Baby steps, we need to nail down basic limited locomotion as a priority, but all avenues should be explored.