This assignment is due before class on Tuesday, September 17.
Each student should play at least 30 minutes of VR but shoot for an hour or two. Play at least 10 experiences, but idealy a few dozen. Many of the most interesting are free. Limit how long you play each one to a few minutes. Don't pick experiences that are similar to each other. Strive to experience the widest breadth play. Study and watch videos of as many VR experiences as possible over the next few days as well. If you want to play any VR experiences we don't have, ask me and we'll get it.
Remember there's always a Vive setup in the staffed 5th floor CDM game lab as well you can use to both PLAY game and TEST YOUR OWN VR PROTOTYPES/GAMES if you bring executables on a flash drive: https://www.cdm.depaul.edu/Student-Resources/Pages/LabsAndResources/Lab536.aspx
Steam login is:
thevadican
Steam password is:
Hololens8
- Play DOZENS!!!! Play for a few minutes and move on. If you can't find a download watch videos.
- Accounting
- Blarp!
- Beat Saber
- Job Simulator
- Unseen Diplomacy
- Fantastic Contraption
- Tilt Brush
- Thunderbird VR
- Google Earth VR
- VR Chat
- The Lab
- Budget Cuts
- Chocolate is a VR experience that has received a lot of publicity for transporting players into the body of glittery cat god.
- Alien Makeout Simulator
- Thunderbird VR
- Lucid Trips
- I Expect You To Die
- Windlands
- Dumpy: Going Elephants (I made with students)
- Classroom Aquatic (scroll down for download)
- ArchiVision roller coasters (pick one from a bunch)
- Disunion, Guillotine simulator
- Soundself (needs microphone)
- Character Mirror
- Ask Brian if you want to try others and we'll get them!
PREVIOUS EXAMPLES FROM CLASS:
After each student has played a bunch of VR, it isn't required but you would benefit a lot from reflecting on your experiences and posting to the class blog. Which games used VR well or advanced the field? Why or why not? What could they have done better? Provide links, images, or videos.
- Study and think about what we discussed the first day of class
- Find UNIQUE inspiration far beyond games to make it easier for you to come up with good ideas Refer back to the slides we went over in class if necessary.
- Each student brainstorms 10 ideas for Project #1 Non-Human VR Toy (scroll down)
- To come up with 10 ideas that are innovative and in-scope it's wise to generate dozens of ideas first. Write down everything that pops in your head then you can select the best ones.
- Before selecting your top 10 ideas, research online to see if similar VR games have been developed before to ensure you're not wasting your time.
- Each student posts their 10 brainstorm ideas on the blog. Include
- Name of each idea
- 2-4 sentence description
- 2-4 sentences describing how the idea meets the project requirements
- Each student picks their best two ideas and prepares to casually discuss with class
The VR games we make are increasingly realistic, immersive, yet miserably fail imagination. VR is nowhere near as social, shamanistic, transformative or visionary as it could become. VR players have been humiliated into brutes who shoot, slash, build, roam, and manically spill coffee. VR players could be many universes of creatures, forces, and existence itself reshaping life, time, space, reality.
Project #1 Create a VR toy fostering a simple, strange non-human experience.
- Toys should be small and achievable in 1.5 weeks. Shorter than a minute to play.
- Make them as NOVEL as they are SIMPLE.
- LIMIT input constraints. Challenge and rethink how input could affect the shape, sounds, nature of space and beings around the player and perhaps even the player themself. Concentrate on making this project an evocative, unusual toy rather than a structured game. Only add more than one input if it really enhances the experience. Your input could be these or anything that works:
- LOOKING around in Character Mirror, gazing into eyes, lips, precious animal faces in VR (who shyly look away, bravely gaze back, etc.) evokes wonder, magic. The toy works on Rift with archived downloads here: Mac, Windows, Linux. Not VR, but camera input in Metro Rules of Conduct captures how socially awkward eye contact can be for Swedes on trains.
- MIC. Novel mic use as "lateral thinking of withered tech" is lovely, comedic and scientific.
- HANDS are so weird. We express, touch, living through them in countless unconscious ways. Why must games cobble our hands to throw, shoot, run, etc.? Our hands in VR are teeming with undiscovered possibilities to play with space, faces, inflate giant & ponderous. Don't imitate, appreciate creative designs. Notice how Fantastic Contraption uses natural hand movements to CONJURE and RESHAPE objects. Shooting, the mechanic that rules them all, can still surprise us: Chocolate shoots cats freezing midair to lick butts on the beat.
- MOVEMENT is input. Not to dodge or peek, those are done to death. How could it matter how a player stands, wiggles, or sleeps? How can space, a wall, floor become a toy? Unseen Diplomacy has players crawling through a vent, compelling yet back-breaking. Don't rip it off. But keep growing your mental list of these VR dev tricks, if they work, and if not, why not.
- BODY as toy. How could VR tease, shrink, split, melt or multiply a player's embodiment?
- Each team meets in person Tuesday or Wednesday to do the following:
- Develop a Discord/Slack communication group. Set a schedule and development plan for game.
- Revising Ideas:
- Each student brainstorms new ideas and pitches two REVISED or NEW ideas to their team.
- The team discusses each idea and picks the idea that best accomplishes project goals. These criteria can help determine which idea is best:
- how well does it use single input? the more expressive the better.
- how non-human is it? the stranger and more creative the better.
- how easy will it be to prototype? the quicker the better.
- how fun will it be? the easier to play the better.
- how much does it innovate/advance VR? You will have to research online to see what other VR experiences have been developed to determine how novel or derivative your idea is.
- keep revising your ideas to best meet these criteria to the best of your abilities
- Each team posts their best idea(s) to the blog, explaining in a paragraph how it satisfies each of the criteria really well. Teams can post as many ideas as they like.
- Each team prototypes their best idea.
- Each team posts to the blog:
- name of toy
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- video capture
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for prototype
- instructions on how to play
- download link to prototype
- a mid-mortem of what is going well and why, and what is not going well and why. Explain what your team will change to ensure that the game delivers on the high concept and goal of the project.
- Each team puts 4 NEW playtesters through their game.
- Each playtester needs to complete a survey after they play. Ask questions about their first impressions, what was most compelling, most frustrating, etc.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- the name of the toy and a current screenshot
- playtest results and proposed changes to address problems that came to light
- Each team makes a dozen major iterations to their toy.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- name of toy
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for project
- instructions on how to play
- video capture
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- download link to prototype
- a postmortem of what went right, wrong and why
This assignment has three parts. All parts are due before class on Tuesday, October 1.
1) MORE RIFT and VIVE TIME
Each student gets 30 additional minutes of Rift or Vive time to play at least 5 different games or experiences.
- Work with your team and studio to schedule when and where to play.
- For your first game play Soundself (needs microphone and headphones) for at least 5 minutes.
- For the other games, don't pick experiences that you have already played or are similar to each other. Strive to experience the full breadth of what people have developed for the Rift. Suggestions:
- Classroom Aquatic (scroll down for download)
- Disunion, Guillotine simulator
- give and ask for suggestions from other students on Slack
2) NOVEL GAMES: EXPERIENTIAL RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Each student should research a few games that try to enable players to experience an altered state or very unusual and subjective experience. Play at least two of them. Post a short critique of each experience (3-5 sentences for each game played) to the blog. What could they have done better to achieve a stronger or more provocative experience? Provide links and screenshots or videos of what you played so your critiques have context.
3) LIFE: EXPERIENTIAL RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Seek a novel and dramatic experience that YOU have never had before. This could be anything from bungee jumping to attending a Pentecostal church or a rave party. Do whatever is the most new and strange for you do to. Post several paragraphs to the blog objectively describing what you did and what your subjective experience was like. Consider how that experience could be used and exaggerated as inspiration for a new kind of game experience.
HIGH CONCEPT:
Develop a VR toy that enables players to attain a strong altered state that is novel to games. Concentrate on making an experiential toy rather than a structured game.
ALTERED STATES:
Your experience can be dark and terrible or light-hearted and goofy as long as it allows players to experience a strong, altered state novel to games. Most importantly, do NOT make a game ABOUT something, make a game that delivers a unique EXPERIENCE. Powerful art can enable people to enter altered states, for example, Serra and Holt's Boomerang. Profoundly religious experiences can cause participants to enter altered states, e.g. speaking in tongues or seeing the holy spirit fly through a congregation. Night terrors are another example, e.g. when a paralyzed child feels a demon or hag crushing her chest stealing her breath. Ayahuasca ceremonies pull folks into altered states, e.g. they learn their spirit power songs and vomit dark energy sludge. The state could be even more specific than these. You can be inspired by an unusual event you've experienced but change and exaggerate its sensations. For example, when I lived in Taiwan I was walking home with a headache at 5am and saw what appeared to be a working bike on a pile of garbage. I touched the seat and a hand lurched from the trash, grabbing my wrist. A large, screeching female figure rose from the trash. For a few seconds my mind reeled and I entered an altered state, it seemed like the trash monster from Fraggle Rock was about to envelop me. If you represented what I just described, that would not be very strong or unique to games. You would have to push and exaggerate each detail until it got 100 times better.
NOVEL
The experience should be new and novel for all games not just new for VR. No other game should deliver anything like it. Soundself was inspired by LSD experiences and Burning Man, there are games that try to convey crippling depression, being drunk, etc., so do your research to make sure you are delivering an experience that is completely novel to games.
STRONG
The game should come on like Gang Busters. That means that from the first second of the experience, players are plunged into something intense. Use both SOUND and VISUALS to accomplish this. The experience needs to be very strong. It should suck players right in and hold them tight, twisting their awareness like a snake charmer, hurricane, or siren song.
CRITERIA TO SUCCEED:
- Use head rotation as the main input and mechanic. The more core rotation is to changing or affecting the experience the better. You can also use controller, keyboard, or microphone input if absolutely necessary, but only if it dramatically helps deliver the other criteria below. Consider that putting the player on rails or using the spacebar to teleport may be a better option than allowing players free movement.
- Achieve a strong and novel altered state. The rarer and more intense the better.
- Pick an idea that is easy to prototype. The quicker the better.
- Pick an idea that is toylike and encourages experimentation. The more playful and reactive to input the better. Toylike does not require your experience to be positive or light-hearted. Terrifying or dark situations could still be toylike and reactive to players (e.g. a demon could terrorize the player as it mimics her movement or head rotation).
- The experience must end at 30 seconds. The game should shut down. This will help playtesting and evens the playing field.
- Each student brainstorms 10 toy ideas for the project. Name each toy idea. Describe each one in 2-4 sentences. Pick the two ideas you think are the most promising. Use these criteria to determine which two ideas are best :
- how well does it use rotation as the main input? the more core the better.
- how strong and novel is the altered state? the rarer and more intense the better.
- how easy will it be to prototype? the quicker the better.
- how fun will it be? the more toylike and experiment-encouraging the better.
- Explain how your top two ideas satisfy each of those four requirements. Write a paragraph for each.
- Each team meets in person Thursday evening or Friday afternoon.
- Each student pitches her top two ideas to her team.
- The team discusses each idea and picks the most promising one. Use these criteria to determine which idea is best :
- how well does it use rotation as the main input? the more core the better.
- how strong and novel is the altered state? the rarer and more intense the better. Do your research. Are there any other games like it?
- how easy will it be to prototype? the quicker the better.
- how fun will it be? the more toylike and experiment-encouraging the better.
- Revise the idea a few times if necessary.
- Each team posts their best idea to the blog, explaining in a paragraph how it satisfies each of the four criteria really well.
- Each team prototypes their best idea.
- Each team posts to the blog:
- name of toy
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- video capture
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for prototype
- instructions on how to play
- download link to prototype
- a mid-mortem of what is going well and why, and what is not going well and why. Explain what your team will change to ensure that the game delivers on the high concept and goal of the project.
- Each team puts 4 NEW playtesters through their game.
- Each playtester needs to complete a survey after they play. Ask questions about their first impressions, what was most compelling, most frustrating, etc.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- the name of the toy and a current screenshot
- playtest results and proposed changes to address problems that came to light
- Each team makes a dozen major iterations to their toy.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- name of toy
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for project
- instructions on how to play
- video capture
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- download link to prototype
- a postmortem of what went right and wrong and why
Items due before class on Tuesday, October 15
1) READ this article: Working for the Man. First, just try to understand the author's complete argument before you start picking it apart. Now, what would you add to or critique about his argument?
2) BROWSE playground artist Richard Dattner's work (one of his works appear in the opening of Sesame Street) as well as M. Paul Friedberg's work. And browse this blog on playgrounds. If in those three links you do not find any playground designs that you consider awesome and exemplary, search the internet for playgrounds that you do think are awesome. What are some traits or rules to what you consider to be excellent playground design? Does good playground design address or solve any of the problems raised in the first article? Why or why not?
3) READ this article: 6 Keys for Playground Design. What points from this article translate well into VIRTUAL playground design and what points do not? Consider the first article as well when you answer this next question: if you had to offer 6 Keys for VIRTUAL playground design for ADULTS using a Rift, what would they be?
4) POST to the blog your answers to the questions in items 1-3 listed above. Write at least a paragraph for each of three items.
Items due before class on Tuesday, October 15
1) MORE RIFT and VIVE TIME
Each student gets 30 additional minutes of Rift and Vive time to play at least 5 different games or experiences. Post a short critique of each game to the blog.
2) PLAY OUTSIDE
Do something you rarely or have never done outside. I don't care what it is but do for 20 minutes. Maybe climb on some rooftops, do cartwheels through a park, or crawl through a playground. Take a picture and post it and what you did to the blog.
HIGH CONCEPT:
Develop a fun, weird, and dynamic playground. Be Bold. Failure is an option. ADVANCE THE MEDIUM OF VR. What makes an incredible VR Playground? Perhaps the equipment is a kind of 3D "interface" that dynamically changes and reacts to the player. Maybe the player is reborn in a kind of VR Pure Land designed by Paul Klee and Noguchi but programmed and puppeteered by H.P. Lovecraft and Jim Henson.
COLLABORATE TOGETHER TO FAIL FAST
Programmers, artists, designers should collectively devise strategies to achieve a super polished FEELING and LOOKING playground. Do not waste time on anything that does not pay off within AN HOUR of prototyping and testing. Remember to "shoot the baby in the crib" and cut losses early. Keep failing fast until you come up with something incredible.
FLEX THE POSSIBILITY SPACE
Check out the playgrounds blog one more time. Imagine what those designers would unleash in VR. VR space, mechanics, and physics are only limited by your imagination, knowledge of the engine/tools, and problem-solving skills. Don't be conservative with the playground layout (i.e. don't just place crap around a flat plane). Be creative with how you approach, see, and think about space as Ender does in Ender's Game. Remember the player's neck: it is uncomfortable to look up or down for too long, or to look behind you too often.
STRONG ART STYLE
Bake shadows and craft unique and compelling lighting and architectures. Think outside the box to give your playground a cool finished, memorable vision. For example, instead of using blob shadows, you could put blob lights on the floor beneath bright or self-illuminated objects (you would do this in addition to putting an actual light in the object itself), that layered effect could look very sleek. Brainstorm dozens of tricks like that to make your playground look and feel fantastic.
STRONG COLOR PALETTE
To ensure your playground looks STUNNING you need to come up with a strong color palette. If you do not have a better idea for a color palette structure, use an Analogic & Complementary scheme (explore options on left. float mouse around screen to get different effects. horizontal position determines hue, vertical position determines shade/tint).
CONSIDER ABSTRACTION
Consider an abstract visual style because it will be easier to polish. Abstraction is a common strategy for game developers who want to achieve a high level of polish with very limited resources (see Mirror Moon, Race the Sun). You are not required to use an abstract style, however.
CONSIDER RIFFING OF AN ABSTRACT ARTIST
You may want to browse some abstract artists and focus on one whose art strongly moves you. The harder to explain why you like the artist's work, the better. Check out any abstract artist, e.g. Al Held (really fitting for this project), Paul Feeley, Sam Francis, or pick a Geometric Abstract Sculptor or Playground Fine Artist Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam. Check out these radiolaria.
CRITERIA TO SUCCEED
This project will take a different strategy in determining the criteria for success. Each team will determine their own 6 keys to excellent VR playground design. Take your own 6 keys seriously. Deliver on each one to invent and define an exemplary "VR Playground." Each team's playground will be assessed using their own 6 keys in addition to these 2 criteria:
- Design your playground so it is easy to prototype. The quicker to test the better.
- Your playground must advance the medium of VR. No more passive spectacles to just fly, sit, or glide through or gawk at. Before Tuesday I was not going to add this criterion because I did not think you needed it. I was disappointed to see several teams take this intellectually lazy route in the last project. That is a waste of our time. Lead don't follow.
- Each student brainstorms 10 ideas for the playground. Name each idea. Describe each one in 2-4 sentences. Pick the two ideas you think are the most promising. Use the 6 keys you posted to the blog in Assignment #3 in addition to the two criteria I list above to determine which of your two ideas are best.
- Explain why your top two ideas satisfy each of your 6 keys and my 2 additional criteria. Write a paragraph for each idea.
- Each team meets in person Thursday or Friday.
- Each team discusses what they think comprise the 6 Keys to excellent VR Playground design. Agree on the language for each key and post them to the blog.
- Each student pitches her top two ideas to her team.
- The team discusses each idea and picks the most promising one. Use the 6 Keys that they had agreed upon previously plus the 2 additional project criteria to determine which idea is best.
- Revise the idea a few times if necessary.
- Each team posts their best idea to the blog, explaining in a paragraph how it satisfies each of the 6 Keys and 2 additional project criteria extremely well.
- Each team prototypes their best idea.
- Each team posts to the blog:
- name of playground
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- video capture
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for prototype
- instructions on how to play
- download link to prototype
- a mid-mortem of what is going well and why, and what is not going well and why. Explain what your team will change to ensure that the game delivers on the high concept and goals of the project.
- Each team puts 4 NEW playtesters through their playground.
- Each playtester needs to complete a survey after they play. Ask questions about their first impressions, what was most compelling, most frustrating, etc.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- the name of the playground and a current screenshot
- playtest results and proposed changes to address problems that came to light
- Each team makes a dozen major iterations to their playground.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- name of playground
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for project
- instructions on how to play
- video capture
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- download link to prototype
- a postmortem of what went right and wrong and why
Items due before class on Tuesday, October 29:
1) MORE RIFT TIME
This may be the last opportunity you have in a long time to play with VR on your own time. USE IT WELL. Search out the coolest, weirdest VR experiences to play. Each student gets 30 additional minutes of Rift time to play at least 5 different games or experiences. Post a short critique of each game to the blog.
2) WHAT INSPIRES YOUR YOUNGER/OLDER SELVES?
Read the entire Project #4 description. What are some themes, ideas, dreams, nightmares, etc., that would entertain and inspire your 10-15 year-old self AND your 30-40 year-old self? How do they inspire both versions of yourself? Post a few paragraphs to the blog.
HIGH CONCEPT:
Develop a game that:
- Would inspire and entertain your 30-40 year-old self. As you develop your game, imagine what a more experienced and worldly version of yourself would enjoy. In part, this is a psychological trick. For example, if you are nervous before you need to give a talk, if you imagine that the audience is your close friends who are eager to see you, and who you are eager to see, you will give a much more gripping, high-quality talk. For this project imagine the kind of person you will become once you have 10-20 more years of experience playing and making all kinds of games. Most VR games are broken, shallow, or for idiots. What would impress and entertain a more advanced version of yourself who has seen it all?
- Would inspire and entertain your 10-15 year-old self. What dreams and crazy fantasies would you have loved to play in a VR experience when you were a kid? Imagine your young self putting on a Rift and launching your game. What would blow their minds the most?
- Is inspired by at least one reference. The reference can be an artist, visual phenomenon, song, landmark, insect, etc. Find an artist or thing who really moves you and use them as a reference pool to get ideas for art, audio, interaction, and/or experience design. This is a personal choice, so you should seek out artists based on your own interests and tastes. For example, I like to browse these resources to find new artists:
- http://www.juxtapoz.com/tag/sculpture
- http://www.thisiscolossal.com/
- http://www.giantrobot.com/
- if "art" is too dead for you seek inspiration elsewhere. Check out these radiolaria
CRITERIA TO SUCCEED
- Your game inspires your future and past selves. Because it is impossible to assess and critique this criterion we will have to trust you each did your very best.
- Use your inspirational reference in an integral way either visually, acoustically, or experientially.
- Design your game so it is easy to prototype. The quicker to test the better.
- Your game must advance the medium of VR. No more passive spectacles to just fly, sit, or glide through or gawk at. Use the affordances the medium in a creative and substantial way.
- Players inexperienced with VR must be able to fully enjoy your game.
- Each student selects their inspirational reference. Brainstorms 10 ideas for the game. Name each idea. Describe each one in 2-4 sentences and post to blog.
- Each student picks the two ideas they think is the most promising. Use the criteria I list above to determine which of your two ideas are best. Explain why your top two ideas satisfy the project criteria and how your inspirational reference will influence the game. Write a paragraph for each idea. Include a link to your inspirational reference (or embed images).
- Each team meets in person Thursday or Friday.
- Each student shares their inspirational reference and pitches her top two ideas to her team.
- The team discusses each game idea and picks the most promising one. Use the project criteria to determine which idea is best.
- Revise the idea a few times if necessary.
- Each team posts their best idea to the blog, explaining in a paragraph how it satisfies the project criteria extremely well. Provide a link to the inspirational reference (or embed images in post).
- Each team prototypes their best idea.
- Each team posts to the blog:
- name of game
- sentence describing inspirational reference as well as link (or embed images in post).
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- video capture
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for prototype
- instructions on how to play
- download link to prototype
- a mid-mortem of what is going well and why, and what is not going well and why. Explain what your team will change to ensure that the game delivers on the high concept and goals of the project.
- Each team puts 4 NEW playtesters through their game.
- Each playtester needs to complete a survey after they play. Ask questions about their first impressions, what was most compelling, most frustrating, etc.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- the name of the game and a current screenshot
- playtest results and proposed changes to address problems that came to light
- Each team makes a dozen major iterations to their game.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- name of game
- sentence describing inspirational reference as well as link (or embed images in post).
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for project
- instructions on how to play
- video capture
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- download link to prototype
- a mid-mortem of what has gone well and poorly and why
- Each team makes another dozen major iterations to their game.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- name of game
- sentence describing inspirational reference as well as link (or embed images in post).
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for project
- instructions on how to play
- video capture
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- download link to prototype
- a postmortem of what has gone well and poorly and why
- Each team makes another dozen FINAL major iterations to their game.
- Each team
posts to the blog:
- name of game
- sentence describing inspirational reference as well as link (or embed images in post).
- teammate names and roles INCLUDING list of each major thing they did for project
- instructions on how to play
- video capture
- at least 2 screen captures showing action
- download link to prototype
- a postmortem of what has gone well and poorly and why