Lagora's...stuff

Disclaimer

I have a PHD in nothing, at the unUniversity of WAUTA (What.Are.You.Talking.About). I’m currently equipped with the HTC Vive 5 (a bit better than the 3, and a much better than the 4, go figure), and have a career of 300 years in VR. And I come from the future.

If you got the ability to discern humour, I hope you understood what I meant.

TL;DR: I know nothing about VR, and I just own a Google Carboard (and a nexus 5x). I’m just thinking loudly here. And asking question. Consider this writing as purely theorical.

First

I try to resist the urge to possess anything (I perceive) remotely better than the google cardboard. Yet, with (at least) one hand holding the cardboard, I was wondering about how could I interact with a VR world ?

Zero Input

I said one hand, but I could as well say two hand. So no way to click a physical button in my hand. The irony of being in a VR world but not being able to do anything except just look. Which is, of all, already incredible. 

With no input whatsoever, how can I interact with the world ? 

Contextual Interface

What about a diegetic interface ? A representation of possibles interactions in a VR world: Look a door knob, and a tooltip appear, asking you if you want to open the door (or not), look for “yes” for a “brief” amout of time, and the door open. Idem with a NPC. The main limitation I think of is (was ?) the first/most common problem of VR world/games: navigation. Maybe navigation should be revised as to move in places relatives to other objects (I see a chair, with a contextual option to move near it. 

A measured approach should then be needed, to avoid contextual tooltip hell, where any glance anywhere would trigger the rise of abundand forest of bubbles asking you anything and everything.

Diegetic Interface 

Perhaps you won’t be alone in a game made like this. What of your very personal butler, whose personal role is to be your main interface: Want to see your inventory ? Your game options, anything ? As for the novelty of “my character look at interesting object so I know where to search”, maybe this role will be his/her. So your butler look at a piece of paper, ask him/her to have a look. It should boost development in AI, if anything. 

This seems well adapted to the point & clic kind of games. Damn, Sherlock Holmes VR ! Or the next Ace Attorney ! :D

Maybe being in a VR world means that immersion should be distinct from open world.

So I receive this (cheap) helmet I was looking for, and...it’s crap. Sure, it’s nice to be able to tweak some stuff on it, yet, the phone is too far from my eyes, so everything is blurry.

I intended to start from it, but I back to square one, with my google cardboard, which is good, don’t get me wrong, but now what ?

Well, I will put some money apart, waiting to afford something better, like, really better. Still don’t know what, because Oculus/HTC Vive is still quite expensive, and I’m not ready to commit to PSVR if now serious hack is available (I need to look for it, it seems to “start”, but, meh).

Right now, the “cheapest” alternative is samsung VR + second hand galaxy S5.

Disclaimer

I have a PHD in nothing, at the unUniversity of WAUTA (What.Are.You.Talking.About). I’m currently equipped with the HTC Vive 5 (a bit better than the 3, and a much better than the 4, go figure), and have a career of 300 years in VR. And I come from the future.

If you got the ability to discern humour, I hope you understood what I meant.

TL;DR: I know nothing about VR, and I just own a Google Carboard (and a nexus 5x). I’m just thinking loudly here. And asking question. Consider this writing as purely theorical.

How FPS became FPX ?

Right now, not having testing any “real” VR helmet (I intend to), I’m not really sure Shooters is a good game type for VR. It could be fun, of course, but, as I felt that shooting non-existing humanoid not really engaging as I grew older, I also felt it to be more and more of the same thing. The only thing that made me a bit interested was the “tactical cover” gameplay mechanic. And then it was all over (again). You can argue that “tactical reloading” is a thing, but I think it’s far less important than cover.

So I can shoot people in games, yeah. I’m not making any talk about “violent games” or anything. I’m just a bit tired to do the same thing, in what also seems to be the “same” settings: battefields, from the “past” (WW 2, 1?) to the “future” (COD). Right now, the two most commons (or visibles) FPS game type are shooter and “survival”. Those types could be more intense in VR, but I seriously doubt they will be more interesting. And where you have to move a lot in shooters, you can really stay static in horror games. I said horror to make a link with survival, because in a lot of case, you either must litterally escape an horrible fate, or prevent it while staying in place.

First Person Shitter ?

I may be wrong, but I feel like a lot of indie/cheap VR games (on steam) rely on an horror setup. And boy, as FNAF (Five Nights At Freddy’s) did prove you can have success with the same recipe (not talking about quality), I’m a bit afraid of an overflow of cheap horror “games” as the most common game type for VR.

And I’m team #brownPants (I must mentally prepare myself for the RE7 demo), so, you can’t tell me “VR is the best when you shit yourself with cheap jumpscare”. Sure, I would have died for a VR Silent Hills (even with PT having some jumpscares). But now, I want to play game looking for another kind of experience.

So, I really wish “games” can make a transition from FPS (kill everything with a limited input experience) to FPX (eXperience anything really engaging from the First Point of view).

So moving in VR can make you sick.

That is, moving at an “artificial” pace, using the left stick, when your physical body move not accordingly with your VR body. The solution found was to teleport from and to any location, without transition, so you stay “static” each time. I find that rather cool. To be honest, the first time I saw a title about it, I thought “What the hell VR has to do with quantum teleportation ?” and then I was “ohhhhhh, ok. Nice”. 

When looking at “all” (99.999% ?) FPS game, you move a lot. And as I said earlier, I a bit sick of shooter (still loving somes, but, meh). 

Teleporting from point A to point B

I remember a game where this could be really interesting: Sentinel. It’s a really old game, with a remake on PsOne (I think), that was already in 3D back then. It’s the perfect game for VR, and, not having done any research, perhaps it’s already on steam (or anywhere else). If it’s not already done, it should be done in VR.

In this game, you must go to the highest point of the map, occupied by the sentinel, looking for any anomaly like you, to destroy. You do this by taking the place of various other objects on the map, until you get the place of the sentinel.

Teleporting should be instantaneous, or at least, it should feel like it. I wonder if it is the case in multiplayer VR games. Do I see player 2 popping here and there ? Could this be adapted with more traditional gameplay, where you must move your character continously ?

First, I haven’t tested any “real” VR helmet, so I don’t know about the sickness that seems to strike you. I only tested the demo from aframe.io with my phone and cardboard, and I didn’t feel sick. Maybe I’m immune ! :D I heard your body have to adapt over a period of time. I should see.

Blink and move

But I think (until I test otherwise), we could blend classic FP movement with the teleportation method. The teleportation method seems “safe”, but the limit to where you can go is artificial: Why limit the range of teleportation ? It look like the invisibility power of one character in the movie “Mystery Men”: Awesome on principle, but quite strangely limited in application.

So could you move freely ? No, should you teleport only a few steps each time ? Not quite. Maybe you could teleport really quickly and simply, while blinking. I’m not talking about blinking under your VR helmet. The helmet won’t know anything (yet) about your eyes. I talking about simulating a blink of you VR character while you move. The duration of the blink link to the range of the teleportation. And a blink is fast, but I think there is a good range of speed and distance between blinking too quickly (screen flickering) and blinking for too long (is the game frozen ?)

I wasn’t sure this pun could be renewed with VR, but still. Anyway, as for every year, on a lot of blogs, the good resolutions no one keep. I won’t look at those from last year, I don’t want to be depressed.

The usual suspects

- lose weight

- stop smoking (I really want this to work)

- get better at [insert anything here, it’s not really important since you’ll already started last year and thus, you’ll be already better, OR, you’ll never quite put any time worth to start getting anything]

The old ones

- Make (read “finish start making”) a game goddamit

- Do read the 10/100 books/games you never started

- Blog nearly every day: Well, if I’m really honest, I don’t really think, at all, I could do that, yet, I should post a few articles each weeks, and overall, not wait for too long before posting anything (because then, I lose interest/motivation)

The new ones

- make “something” in VR, while not having a real equipment

- move to a bigger flat: I can’t stand my flat anymore. I don’t know yet where I’ll go, and I hope I could stay in the same price range, but I have to go.

- Allow myself to love someone again (yeah, a bit sad and poetic, but, whatever)

- To meet Kojima, Musk, Notch

- A new laptop

- A sweet HTC Vive and the PC to run it

Hello again

I’m still not dead, which is nice.

The past few months were really intense. And as the year will come to an end, I realise, again, just as the previous years, that I’ve yet to release anything in fact. 

Having reduced the scope of my ambitions, I wanted to make only small demos instead of full games (whatever could it mean). It didn’t changed anything, because zero minus 90%, is still zero.

The struggle is real for me, between sexy AF library, and damn deep middlewares. I must break the circle. It goes as follow:

- Have an idea for concept/gameplay

- Enrich AF said idea with lore/justification about said gameplay idea

- Existential crisis about it being too wide/simple/complex/whatever

- Self hyped while thinking about desired aesthetics/gfx/shaders/etc

- Look any libraries/middlewares showcases while thinking about the project

- Fiddle a bit until things get hard.

- Give up but think of it as “frozen project”

- Until one morning, someone, somewhere make something either remotely similar, or just exactly like it 

- Now I hate myself for not being able to finish what is my passion, and telling so much people that “making video games is my passion”. Keep dreaming to be the next Notch (as so many indie dev)

- Feel like a fraud because you’re not a writer if you don’t release a book

- Try to have next idea as more humble, simpler, faster to do.

- Rince and repeat. And keeping wishing for a magic wand/tool that will make lot of things so much simpler (keep founding it).

So !

So, regarding the aesthetics of my projects, it’s either retro pixel, but with scenes that are highly dynamics, with lots of stuff moving here and there, a certain density. Or simple and elegants low poly (Super Hot, Mirrors Edge). The thing is it’s hard for me to make lots of assets when I’m not comitted to a style. From this kind of position, nothing can really emerge: I’ll make crappy assets because I’m not 100% in the style, and I’m not 100% in the style because I only make crappy assets. I’m hyped by screenshots from other peaople. But I don’t want to emulate a style, I want my own.

Promises ?

I found that, upon looking showcases for some library/framework/middleware, it somehow motivate me because I think my projects could look like. For hardware related novelty too: I had (and still have) ideas working with kinect, leap motion and whatnot.

Recently I’ve been really hyped by VR. But, pal, I have neither a war machine nor a PS4. And I can’t really spend at least 800€ on this. The lowest setup I could have should be a samsung VR and a second hand galaxy S5. But it’s still really expensive, and for what I’ve seen, games aren’t there (except for “Budget Cut”).

I think the indie scene has a card to play in VR, but rather in low tech VR. And that’s where aframe.io spawn: Proc.Edu.Ria was what kept me on for a long time, but as sweet as WebGL is, I lost myself.

I want to make some small games/demos with it in 2017. Maybe starting with a reboot of Proc.Edu.Ria, in VR. My setup is rather simple: My phone (nexus 5X), a plastic helmet (15€), and maybe a bluetooth controller later.

VR ?

When I think about Proc.Edu.Ria, I see a First Person Adventure, with an universe to explore. Not an open world, expanding for a gazillion KM. Rather a smaller, intimate, close landscape, with a lot of stuff to do. Like the maps from Assassin’s Creed, with all the secondary quests, but in a way that feel immersive and interesting.

And I think that’s what VR games should be. Put me in the shoes of a detective, in Chicago, and I’ll want to roam the streets. You won’t have to make a bullshit story about anything. Just put me there, and you’ll see me staying and staring long hours at the map you made, the details your talented team made during this couple of years.