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The Big VR Thread

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Yesterday was a Rez Infinite and PSVR event in Shibuya. I didn't go, now I wish would've. Tetsuya Mizuguchi was there himself and apparently the event was really awesome.

It is still happening until next week's sunday every day at an art gallery, but there are limited spots available per day. I wouldn't want to travel a few hours in a train just to notice it's full already.

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I just beat Wayward Sky on PSVR in one sitting and was blown away. Short, easy puzzles, and bit of technical issues but it made a strong case for adventure games in VR. Controls with the move controllers was perfect but I found them to be manageable and relatively intuitive. Not a perfect game but could easily be used as foundation for bigger 3rd person adventure (or maybe even RPG or narrative) games.

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I just beat Wayward Sky on PSVR in one sitting and was blown away. Short, easy puzzles, and bit of technical issues but it made a strong case for adventure games in VR. Controls with the move controllers was perfect but I found them to be manageable and relatively intuitive. Not a perfect game but could easily be used as foundation for bigger 3rd person adventure (or maybe even RPG or narrative) games.

I've still only played the demo but I had a great time.

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How many PSVR buyers here? I have one!

I don't even have a PS4, but Rez Infinite sure is tempting with PSVR.

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I've still only played the demo but I had a great time.

 

A team good at narrative driven games could knock something like this out of the park (hint, hint), haha. Although I did see Thumb's own Sean Vanaman in the special thanks section of Wayward Sky's credits. Pretty cool!

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Have you had any tracking issues? The GB videos are full with instances where the player is standing still, but the controller or view are jumping around.

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Have you had any tracking issues? The GB videos are full with instances where the player is standing still, but the controller or view are jumping around.

 

No, I've had none of that. One of the GB people said in a podcast episode later they went through some setup videos Sony put out and since then it got a lot better. Most issues are solvable with tweaking the setup. I had a couple issues with reaching too hight with the move controller that the camera was confusing it and the helmet or something, but that was only within one mechanic of the entire game. Rest of the jankiness was with the animations and pathfinding for me. I played at night with most lights off so the contrast of the tracking lights was high, that helps.

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Welp I went ahead and bought some huge poles to mount my vive guys on, cause I don't wanna put any more holes in the walls. Now I just need to completely rearrange this room and I can start construction (of a vr game).

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I got Thumper for PS4 this weekend. Getting PSVR for it would be amazing. The game already implores that I wear headphones to merge my consciousness into its singularity. Adding goggles to that would be a complete and total detention from reality.

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Welp I went ahead and bought some huge poles to mount my vive guys on, cause I don't wanna put any more holes in the walls. Now I just need to completely rearrange this room and I can start construction (of a vr game).

Sweet! What kind of game? I am a programmer and dabble with games and VR games that think outside the box of what is possible are something that I'm interested in too

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Sweet! What kind of game? I am a programmer and dabble with games and VR games that think outside the box of what is possible are something that I'm interested in too

 

I don't really have a specific thing in mind, but I have a bunch of small ideas I wanna try building. For now I kind of just want to make a weird sandbox and play around, see what feels fun, what sort of interfaces work well with the vive controllers, whatever. I was kind of working on a space sim idle game loneliness simulator thing that I feel like might work well in VR that'll probably be sorta the framework for this but I'm not dead set on it.

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I don't really have a specific thing in mind, but I have a bunch of small ideas I wanna try building. For now I kind of just want to make a weird sandbox and play around, see what feels fun, what sort of interfaces work well with the vive controllers, whatever. I was kind of working on a space sim idle game loneliness simulator thing that I feel like might work well in VR that'll probably be sorta the framework for this but I'm not dead set on it.

I want to explore rethinking strategy game mechanics to make them immersive and enjoyable in VR. I have some ideas but no VR dev kit yet.

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I'm fascinated by these anecdotes on /r/psvr , after 10 hour sessions:

 

"I had a weird sensation in a meeting earlier where my eyes kept trying to "adjust" to the 3D of the people around me." 
 
"I had a weird moment when I picked up a stapler and started sort of rotating it and staring at it. Only lasted a second or two but it was a weird feeling, sort of disconnected from my hands."

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I noticed an effect on my dreams after my first few days with VR, but I can't remember exactly what it was. I think everything had that electronic-display look.

Also I've become more susceptible to motion-sickness from wildly moving cameras in videos.

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I'll probably dive into PSVR once theres some killer apps and a hair off the price.

 

I'm so fascinated by these cognitive effects of VR. Since VR fools the mind into accepting a new reality; it feeds doubt into the rest of perception. And because VR interfaces are grossly physical, with large arm movements, the muscle-memory translates to real life as well, hense the guy rotating the stapler.

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Yeah, everything feels just a bit off like my mind can't tell which is real and which isn't or something. Weird stuff. Will be interesting to see long term impact of the effect. Will it get worse or will it fade away?

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I think it is directly correlatory to how much time I spend in it. I don't think the effects I experience are permanent, but I bet I would get noticable effects again (for a small period of time) if I was to spend three hours in it within a day's time. I think it's just a slightly more potent Tetris-Effect.

I remember one time I had to drive to pick up my wife after playing Portal all day. It was oddly dangerous. I kept thinking in terms of where to shoot the portals in order to progress down the road.

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I wonder if VR entering the mainstream will create mainstream meditations on the illusory nature of reality. By game-players tacitly experiencing this confusing between reality and simulation, philosophical concepts of the illusory nature of reality more accessible. Like Hindu and Bhuddisms Maya, or Kant's noumenon versus phenomenon. Exciting stuff for a Marshal McLuhan fanatic like myself, what is the message inherent in this new medium. Yes, I am a crack-pot.

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I'm totally with you on having those types of inquiries and interests. I don't see VR as having a significantly different type of versimilatude than other electronic audio/visual mediums though. The new thing I think VR can communicate that is new in the electronic, consumer A/V display tech area is specifically borderless displays and scale. I haven't tried the Touch-type controllers yet though.

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A perception quirks note, for those who don't listen to the Crate & Crowbar they had an interesting bit of this. After being in the Vive for several hours without ill effects, Pip and Chris(?) were getting ready for bed. She was sort of looking around the room and got stuck thinking about where the boundaries were. Chris said she looked over, asked "Is this..this is the real one, right?" and then fell straight over. She was fine, but it seemed like an attempt at mental juggling that overloaded the system. 

On an AR note, I got to see a demo of the Microsoft HoloLens at a talk yesterday and it was pretty damn fun. The gesture interface looks like wizardry, and not having to have peripherals besides the headset (which is not tethered) meant you could just walk around the room. Interestingly, when you create a hologram or otherwise 'add' something to the space, it has permanence. Like, if you put a spray on the wall of our conference room it would still be there months later when you came back. Got to see a demo of a game that scanned the room, then had things tearing chunks out of the walls and coming in from....the other side Very cool and mildly unsettling when he leaned over and looked through/deeper into the unreal hole. Still no word on consumer release and the devkits are 3k, but apparently the team is working with devs on a case to case basis and often handing or lending them out. Their also trying to make them available in major cities, so if you look up your local Microsoft Evangelist (an actual position) you can make an appointment to play with one.

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Sounds like any other case of being light-headed/fainting. I know when it's happened to me in the past I get a definite since that this isn't the real world.

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I recall the Nintendo Virtual Boy automatically pausing itself every 15 minutes, and saying "Go look out side! Flex your eye and neck muscles!" Maybe not in all games, definitely Mario Tennis. I wonder if that will become a feature developers begin to integrate. As something that can be toggled, of course.

 

 

 

 

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Quote

Remember that little digression I told you about how the hundred-foot drop looked so convincing? Yeah. Guess what. The virtual groping feels just as real. Of course, you're not physically being touched, just like you're not actually one hundred feet off the ground, but it's still scary as hell.



https://mic.com/articles/157415/my-first-virtual-reality-groping-sexual-assault-in-vr-harassment-in-tech-jordan-belamire#.voWBTPhTU

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