?'s for the veteran rifters who have played a load of demo's

[mattyeatsmatts]

Okay so I would like to ask you veteran rifters (or newbies) out there who have played a bunch of Rift demo and games a couple of questions. (ignoring resolution problems)

1. What new gaming mechanics have you found to really work well in the rift?

2. What old gaming mechanics have you found to surprisingly work well in the rift?

3. What gaming mechanics have you found to not work well in the rift?

4. What features/techniques should be encouraged when designing a game for the rift?

5. What features/techniques should be discouraged when designing a game for the rift?

Just thought this would be interesting to read some opinions from vet rifters on what has stood out in their minds as they gamed on the rift and what things that just didnt work and should be left out of VR games.

I have a fair idea of what would make a good rift game and am constantly coming up with different game ideas and writing them down in a notebook but I have no actual rift experience and would like to know what I should be avoiding so I can hone my VR knowledge and refine my ideas.

Thanks

[8bit]

I can tell you right off the bat a couple of things that stood out to me in the demos.

Many of you already know this stuff so I'll just state the stuff that I thought was most significant.
1. If you don't have a body you get disoriented and sick much quicker. Even if it is a static model attached to your head it still feels better.
2. Instant velocity hurts. Any game that instantly and unnaturally projects you will hurt or feel uncomfortable. Even when in a vehicle if it has unnatural acceleration it does not feel good.
3. Scale matters. Even with very little reference information you still can pretty easily get a sense of scale. Having wrong scale doesn't necessarily make you sick but it will feel different. You can feel extra tall or extra small - its just different but not painful. In one demo I could tell that I was maybe about 1 foot taller than I really am. And that was in an abstract world made of untextured blocks!

There are many other tips out there too.
Here's a link to the official Oculus VR development best practices forum:
https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/v ... m.php?f=32

[cybereality]

So far the best thing I have tried was the Sixense Tuscany demo w/ Razer Hydra standing up.

The sense of presence when seeing your hands is truly a next-gen experience.

[WiredEarp]

Sixense Tuscany is the best demo of the future of VR - hand tracking, moving objects intuitively, etc.

However, it totally falls down in the control scheme front. Using the joystick just causes nausea.

I'd have MUCH preferred it if they used the 'look to turn' type of movement (think the original Tuscany demo has this type of movement?).

The same issue happens in Zombies on the Holodeck, but its not as bad, as there is a virtual body. This means you can look down at your feet to reorient yourself, reducing nausea a bit.

[nateight]

Part of the problem here is that VR is (effectively) a "new" experience for all of us. We haven't seen but the tiniest fraction of "old" game mechanics utilized yet, and many of the mechanics we have to scrutinize become like new when utilized in VR. Moreover, something like gunplay is probably a great mechanic in VR, but there will be games that do it extremely well and games that make it feel totally unsatisfying or otherwise wonky. There are precious few experts to consult, and unexplored frontiers lie in every direction. It's both thrilling and terrifying, but only by conquering that fear of unrestrained exploration will you accomplish something great. Don't worry too much about what you "should" or "shouldn't" do in VR - only a handful of people on the planet have the experience to even begin laying out the dos and don'ts, and all it will take is one compelling demo for them to admit they were completely wrong about a topic. If you have an idea you really like, build it and show us - I guarantee opening our minds to new uses of VR will be more fun than following some handbook and rehashing proven concepts.

That said, there probably are a number of things to always avoid, but I'm not sure any of them are gameplay mechanics. I've tried to listen very hard to those few experts out there, and these are the things they seem to agree upon:

• Latency mitigation is crucial. Settle for lesser graphical fidelity (i.e., fewer polygons) if it means getting to a stable 60 FPS on decent-but-aging PCs. End-to-end lag times above 30ms start to seriously degrade the VR experience, and while most of the responsibility for this falls on your engine of choice rather than on you, it's still going to be entirely too easy to make intricate environments that would look great if only you could stop throwing up. [Source: Mostly Michael Abrash.]
  
  The sense of scale is entirely different in VR. I strongly suspect most 3D modeling will be done inside VR within a very few years; there's no better way to recognize that all your mailboxes are huge, your streetlights are barely taller than the player, and those textures that looked great on your monitor look absolutely wretched when you have your virtual nose pressed up against them. This mechanic or that mechanic won't much matter if everything else about your game feels wrong; always keep in mind you're developing for a totally new and unique medium, and test, test, test. [Source: Mostly Cloudhead.]
  
  Games that merge avatar and player proprioception are going to be the ones we love the most. Cyber's spot on as usual - the addition of even crudely realistic, position-tracked hands introduces a tremendous amount of immersion. That really is the key to a great VR experience, IMO - immersion. The sense that you're in a virtual space simply doesn't happen with 2D monitors, and Oculus has provided us with the first affordable device that really does a great job of stereoscopy, field of view, and solid head tracking. The Hydra is similarly the best VR input device that's widely available (and soon to be even better?) Mechanics and design decisions that draw players into the moment are always good, things that take people out of the moment are always bad. Generating those two lists is a prevailing task of this whole community, and it's further complicated by the fact that not everyone reacts the same way to identical stimuli. Generally speaking, though: More virtual body awareness, increased interaction with the virtual world and lessened interaction with the physical world, human characters that err on the side of cartooniness to avoid the uncanny valley = good; jarring transitions like instant 100% locomotion of the WASD variety, distant objects that resolve to pixel blobs (though a 5.5" 1080p screen should help with this considerably), throwing the player's avatar around in a way that is disconnected from the player's physical orientation = bad. A more thorough exploration of things that increase and decrease immersion warrants a separate thread, IMO. [Source: Mostly oft-repeated conventional wisdom and Doc Ok.]
  
  First-person games with humanoid avatars are best suited to VR, but don't discount other experiences. Proton Pulse is still one of my favorite Rift games, primarily because it uses the head tracker in a way that feels novel. 3rd-person views seem to work surprisingly well, though finding the games that will most benefit from this viewpoint will be challenging. The games that present totally unknown methods of interaction and display will rise to fame and fortune faster than the games that merely do the conventional well, but even the latter category is waiting to be filled. Don't assume any idea is worthless based on hearsay alone, and don't assume a mechanic is useless just because everyone else who's tried it failed to figure out how to make it work in VR. [Source: Maybe Cymatic Bruce, Minecraft in 3rd person, and RaveTZ?]
  
  Producing compelling VR combat is going to be a huge challenge (just say NO to noseguns!), but in the meantime, mere exploration of virtual spaces is entertaining in a way that is altogether alien to 2D monitor users. Virtual tourism is going to be a big deal, the Google Streetview demo (for all its limitations) is an awesome application of the Rift, and even with Minecraft's retro crudeness, gawking at some giant thing on a server is breathtaking when it's right there (virtually) in front of you. Traditional gunfighting games that demand laser-like focus and situational awareness are going to be serviced by the Rift in their own way, but "games" that simply present some vivid environment for virtual exploration are likely to enjoy a level of popularity that is unimaginable to grey-and-brown gritty/realistic war shooter aficionados. [Source: Mostly Streetview and Minecraft, though The Gallery is all about striking this balance between tense moments of action and go-at-your-own-pace sightseeing.]

Sorry if I'm not actually answering your question; I'll stop now.

[mattyeatsmatts]

Thanks guys!!
And special thanks to Nateight, excellent write up mate that was brilliant, exactly what I wanted to hear.
back to the notebook, hopefully I can churn out something interesting and fun to play.
I want to keep it simple with a long lasting fun factor. So I need to find a unique Rift mechanic that is easy to learn but hard to master. I have a few idea but need to build and test them.