Designing for VR

Elad Drory

Designing for VR

Elad Drory

Topics • Why VR? • Welcoming our players • The elephant in the room • Best practices • What this means for game design • Rethinking the world • Rethinking pace and flow • Production and budget • The future!

Why VR? • We are on the edge of a huge leap forward in VR

• Hardware is taking huge steps forward, and will keep improving

• In March 2014, Facebook bought Oculus for $2 Billion • Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 and future phones will support

Gear VR. 10 million VR-capable phones in 2015. • Google and other companies invested over $500 million

in Magic Leap, a VR/AR company

• As game designers, working in VR tests our ability to create truly immersive experiences

• Because, seriously, VR is awesome

Welcoming our players • As VR pioneers, one of our first goals is to help

people transition into this new medium

• Remember that as developers, we will quickly get used to VR, and forget how shocking the transition can be

• We have to introduce players to VR gently, even at the expense of gameplay

The elephant in the room

• Oculus is working hard to prevent motion sickness • As developers, we have an interest in this as

well

• At its core, motion sickness happens because of a mis-match between our senses.

• What our eyes see doesn’t match what our body feels, creating confusion

And speaking of elephants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OXixY2weuk

Best practices • Never ever take control of the player’s head

• This includes head bobbing, camera shakes, and zooming • Fixed position in games is the most comfortable, and there’s a

lot of possibilities to explore • Ideally, let the player control their own movement and set

their own pace • If you must move the player:

• Move at a constant speed in one direction, don’t change direction or axis suddenly

• Help them understand where they’re going by using lighting and architecture

• Avoid gameplay that requires looking away from direction of travel

• Read the Best Practices document!

A little demonstration ROMANS VIDEO GOES HERE

Rethinking the world • HUD must be part of the world, it can’t be glued on

screen

• Don’t strive for too much realism

• Scale is an easy and extremely powerful tool – feeling bigger or smaller is fun!

• Let players get up close and personal with stuff

• No more cheating – you can’t introduce objects into the game from “off-screen”

Rethinking pace and flow • Add a lot of breaks in the action

• Let players explore, remember that just being in

the world is magical • Think of ways to encourage and reward

exploration

• Don’t forget that it’s a game. Have clear objectives and sense of progress.

Production and budget • Be nice to your 3D guys, you’re going to need them!

• The whole world is 3D • 3D budget on Romans VR was 100% more than we anticipated

- and that included tons of assets from the mobile game • 3D artists have to be much more hands-on, and work closely

with both dev and 2D to integrate things into the world

• Leave a lot of overhead for experimenting • This is always true, but especially in new mediums

• Playtest a lot, but trust the research and community

• You won’t be able to test every kind of player, and your testing tools are limited

VR is the future • Like it or not, VR is going to grow in the coming years

• Not just through games, but through cinema, professional and medical apps

• Is it going to be a gimmick or a lasting new medium?

That depends on us, and the experiences we create.

Thank you! @eladrory

If you’re interested in bringing your games to VR,

contact us at Sidekick! info@sidekick.co.il