Going to the VR Park after our growing knowledge and interactions with Unity VR the past semester made me appreciate and see the games through a different perspective and appreciate and notice the little things I wouldn’t have otherwise.

The way the games (at least most of them) were presented was that the player was strapped to a seat in both real and virtual life which helped in immersing the user in the game without facing the issues of having the player walk out of frame or break through virtual walls

The games that included physical movements that I tried out were the maze game and the multiplayer game fighting zombies. The maze game had physical walls built into the area so even if the player tried to walk through the virtual walls they physically won’t be able to due to the barriers. On the other hand the zombie multiplayer game although the only barrier to limit the player was only located in the virtual world, but due to the scary zombies running and charging towards you, your “fake” barrier would actually prevent the zombies from reaching you, thus making the player realize where they are is actually the safest place to be, and this barrier is protecting them

The best experience I had at the VR Park in Dubai was the Hologate game, Zombyte. I think it was the same for many of my classmates.

It was the experience that was the most ‘Alternate’, depicting a post apocalyptic zombie world where a computer virus takes over the human population’s neural enhancements. As a fan of good world building, to me, most of the experiences I saw that were close to reality like the drone or the Burj drop were fun but still a lot less interesting.

One of the ways in which it was very successful was in making the use of the headsets and equipment was a part of the narrative. We are using our neural enhancements to remotely control fighter robots and hold off the zombie horde, with the danger of the virus spreading to us across the network. We were also handed controllers that were built in to rifles that we held and controlled like real rifles.

The placement of the players back to back, but able to look around and see each other and support each other, and linked headsets to allow us to talk to each other worked well to create a sense of team work. We tried to have each other’s back. Enemies approaching and attacking from multiple sides and angles kept us moving around, sometimes ducking down and shooting over the barrier.

The atmosphere of the game is charged, urgent and terrifying. The dim, artificial neon lighting and the shadows cast from the buildings from which the zombies emerged were effective in creating a sense of a cyber punk world as well as a sense of sci fi horror. I don’t remember if there was music, but that just means it worked so seamlessly that I didn’t notice.

I would totally play it again.

Out of the experiences that involved a VR headset at VR Park, I tried out the roller coaster, the dune surfing ride, a couple of the sports games, the maze game, and the four player zombie shooting game. The hierarchy I would assign each of these games in terms of level of immersion (number 1 being the highest level) would be:

1. Maze game
2. Four player zombie shooting game
3. Sports games
4. Roller coaster
5. Dune surfing ride

Firstly, it is important to note the difference between immersion and presence, because the order would be very different if we were talking about presence. To me, immersion is about how involved the player feels within the experience, in addition to presence. Presence is about building up a cohesive environment, whereas immersion is about how engaged you are within that environment. The experiences that felt the most immersive were the ones in which the user had some sort of mission within the experience. This explains the first three items on my list: the maze game, the zombie shooting game, and the sports games all gave the player some sort of mission or task, whereas with the roller coaster and dune surfing ride, the player was a passive observer.

As for what makes the maze game the most immersive experience, it is about the construction of the physical space. There were physical walls built that corresponded with walls within the game – being able to actually touch these walls within the game made the experience more immersive.

Next on the list is the four player zombie shooting game – the fact that you could share this experience with other users and the fact that the controller shaped like a gun did a lot for the immersion aspect of the game. However, I would still consider the maze game to be more immersive perhaps because you were able to move around more freely. There is something about the ability to walk around a space, even if it is a constrained maze with a set narrative or path, that makes the experience more “real.” There are corners to duck behind to add to the combat experience, whereas in the zombie shooting game your only mode of defense was shooting a gun.

In terms of the use of light and sound, I think all of these experiences made good use of these tools, especially the zombie shooting game. They generally served to set the mood of the experience, such as zombie sound effects and dark lighting for the scary setting. What was especially compelling was that there were microphones for each of the headsets, allowing the players to talk to one another. However, this had both positive and negative effects on the level of immersion of the experience. It was positive because you got to share the experience with other people, and the sounds of other players shouting into the microphones added to a combat-like experience. However, there was an adverse effect at one point. When the lady in the game was giving instructions, we all pointed the gun and shot to kind of see if anything would happen, which led to some discussion in the headsets, which in turn covered up the audio of what the lady was actually saying. As a result, some of game’s narrative was lost.

Something I absolutely understood after experiencing the VR Park is that involving reality with a VR experience can lead to either great success or horrible failure. When the reality plays a part, either as a moving platform, physical walls, or wind effects, it can make the user feel immersed or completely disjointed. The reason for the drastic effect is solely related to the sync between the experience and the reality.

One of the roller coaster rides moved along in such a way that the flying through the sky felt real, this was because the center of gravity and the inertia moved as expected. In another movement-involved experience, there was slight lag between the video and the physical shakes which made the user absolutely understand that this was all fake. The last experience also had a storyline that was so incredibly unrealistic, which didn’t help with the immersion at all.

The sound was helpful in making an immersive experience as well. This worked because sound was used as a form of attention control; sound from behind or to the side would make the user move and thus involve them well in the story line. When sound was used in conjunction with some slight physical interaction from reality and a good storyline, such as in the maze game, the experience was enjoyable. Having some sound but not too much is an important factor as well. Some of the experience generated a mildly chaotic environment by having constant sound and movement involved, such as with the arcade shooter.

Ideally, an experience would draw you in with a strong story and then push you along with mild actions and developments. Some of the experiences didn’t involve a story and instead focused solely on the physical experience, such as falling from a tower or flying through the sky, but that made the user feel more like a passenger than a participant. Naturally all the different roles could be targeted but the most successful experiences all shared the active participant interest.

The Google Cardboard VR experience I chose to review is Invasion (and Asteroid), made by Baobab Studio, which specializes in providing users with immersive experience through its storytelling. Invasion is an animation about the story of a couple of aliens who want to conquer the earth, and upon their arrival they met two bunnies. Interestingly, the user is one of the bunnies (in fact I failed to realize that until I read through the description of the story)!

Like other VR animations, Invasion provides a panoramic scene, allowing the user to get a comprehensive sense of the setting and really feel involved in the story. The Baobab app allows the user to switch between the VR mode and the normal mode (the one that does not require a Google Cardboard but still shows the panoramic scene). I watched the animation twice using different modes, and really appreciated the immersive experience of the VR mode. In the normal mode, the whole experience is limited within the screen of your phone. Thus even if you can look around and explore the scene, you still feel the boundary between the story and the reality, while in the VR mode you become part of the story as if everything is happening around you.

On the other hand, the sound effect fosters the immersive experience. When using the Google Cardboard, the speaker of the phone is closer to your ears, and the 3D sound effect is more notable. When I watched the animations (Invasion and also Asteroid), my attention was directed by the sound effect: whenever I heard something behind me, I would look back and see what’s going on. In that sense, I consider the sound effect as an essential part of the environment. Also, the VR environment offers more freedom for the user: unlike films which directs user’s attention through specific camera angles, VR environment allows user to pick their own camera angle. If you are not interested in what’s going on with the main characters, you can just turn around and explore the scene by yourself.

My first Google Cardboard experience was InMind, a VR experience designed to give the viewer an inside look at the brain. I selected this title because I was really excited to have a VR experience in the context of the human body, to have greater understanding into what our brains look like. What I found was something else entirely.

The experience began with an introduction in which the viewer is referred to as “Human.” The only other character in this experience was a robot narrator who speaks in a very patronizing manner to the viewer. The robot frames the narrative as “we are going to look into the brain of a patient who has depression” and the viewer is launched into what is evidently a game in which they must focus on the red neurons of the brain and turn them back to “normal” to “help” the patient. The ridiculous oversimplification of mental health aside, I do not feel that InMind achieves its goal of giving the viewer an immersive experience into the human brain.

First, the interaction is too slow. Feedback is given in the form of a circle becoming fully shaded when you concentrate on it. However, it takes too long for the circle to become full and thus, for the red neuron to change. It brought to mind what Chris Crawford says on interaction in his book “Interactive Storytelling,” that it must have speed. Furthermore, the interaction was slow in the sense that once you changed a few neurons, nothing seemed to happen. I grew bored. There seemed to be no progression in the narrative and when there finally was, it was merely a sentence or two from the robot who gave a feeble “keep going” message. Because there was such a focus on the red neurons, a pointless focus, I don’t think the viewer was necessarily observing the whole brain and all its synapses of activity. Sure, the environment was pretty, but it didn’t feel immersive. Perhaps that is because the game did not take full advantage of designing for VR since the rollercoaster through the brain only moved forward, not giving the viewer the chance to explore. Furthermore, I felt detached as a player. Perhaps, the game would have felt more immersive if there was more effort put into personalizing it. For instance, instead of being called “Human,” you could be called by your real name or a name you created.

Though the whole experience lasted only four minutes, it felt much longer. In this VR mind, I was bored out of my mind. The ending was just as dull as the progression: “congrats Human on not dying. Now download these other apps,” or something along those lines. I wouldn’t say that this was a waste of time though because it made me realize how important it is to have progression through a VR experience, a clear narrative if you will, and that there is attention given to how much feedback given to the viewer in this narrative and how fast the feedback takes.

I chose to watch a 360 video featuring dinosaurs in a jungle in hopes of experiencing what it would be like to be in Jurassic Park.

One thing I noticed about the composition of the environment is the use of positive and negative space. I think it’s important that the view is not saturated with so many assets that the player/viewer does not know how to go about that place. There needs to be as much empty space for them to figure out how to navigate through the environment. But on this note, I think the design needs to be clear so that the player/viewer can regonize navigation points like roads. In other words, it should be obvious that there’s a road ahead so the player/viewer knows that they have to go forward (see picture #1).

Some of these “navigation points” are clear in the game’s use of coins that are placed on the road before them. The coins appear out of nowhere, bright and glowing, prompting the player to approach it (see picture #2). When you go close enough, it disappears, suggesting that you’ve successfully acquired it.

This specific game seems to also use arrows to direct the player (see picture #3). When the player is lost and looks around, arrows appear on the screen to guide the player. These are all different ways a VR environment tries to communicate information to the player.

Here is a link to the film on YouTube.

Pearl Patrick Osborn’s Oscar nominated 360 view short film that tells the story of a young girl, her father, and their love of music, the two of them connected by a song. The viewer witnesses the story unfold across the years and seasons from the passenger seat of the car that the two protagonists travel around in.

The film begins as an older Pearl finds her father’s old car in a scrapyard, she plays a cassette recording of her father’s song, bringing back memories. The film is a montage of scenes spanning from the girl’s childhood to young adulthood, how her love for music, and the friends she makes it with, develops as she finally makes it in the music world. Yet it primarily revolves around her warm and sometimes rocky relationship with her father over time, around the symbols of the song and the car, the space that the film takes place in.

The style consists of simple, not too detailed, 3D models with cel shading that gives them an almost 2D effect. What really makes the style, however is the atmospheric lighting that creates different moods as well as different times and places. The constant changes in lighting signal the change of scene. There is always a focal point to the action in the scene which the film effectively guides the eye of the viewer to the right spot. One of the moments that works best is where the kids run out into the sea, lit up by the headlights of the car.

What I love most about the film is that it makes use of the idea of how a space can contain memories. The choice of car, a contained space that moves around, revealing the space outside is particularly interesting. The use of VR, instead of telling the story through curated shots, works to make the viewer feel like an outsider, given an intimate glimpse into the lives of these two people. It also gives the viewer an association of themselves with the space of the car, like they are seeing the story unfold from its perspective.

Though it makes a great 360 view video, it is difficult to watch through a headset. The scene transitions between scenes happen rapidly and the car constantly switches from moving to stationary, making it a slightly nauseating experience.