Godwit Games

Technologists, game developers, interactive storytellers. Based in Auckland, New Zealand.

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VR Disc War at the June 2014 Game Developers Meetup in Auckland, New Zealand.

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We had an internal mini VR Jam last Sunday to develop a small prototype based on our Oculus Rift + Kinect Fully body VR solution. The focus behind the game jam was to develop something that worked within the limitations of the Kinect motion tracking area. Due to the limited time-frame, we decided that an iconic scene from cinema would allow players to quickly pickup the objectives.  We started off wanting to create a classic heist safe-cracking scenario where players would have to avoid lasers to get to the safe.  However, the accuracy of the Kinect turned out to be a problem.  We then decided to recreate the classic Neo bullet dodging scene from the Matrix, as it encourages players to stay on the same spot, but move to avoid incoming bullets as a game mechanic. Unfortunately, the minuscule size of bullets, inaccuracy of the Kinect sensor and low resolution of the Oculus meant that it was hard to create a fun, balanced experience. We then decided to expand this to something more accessible - leading us to the idea of dodge-ball, and eventually the classic Disc War battles from Tron. Currently, the main motivation is for the player to dodge incoming discs being flung towards you by a bot.  The bigger movements required from this meant that the Kinect can track the player's dodging movements pretty accurately, and they wouldn't leave the "tracking zone".  The glass battledome recreation from Tron inside the VR scene also further reinforces the player to not leave the tracking area. Overall it was an incredibly fantastic and successful idea, the level of immersion and embodiment achieved in this one day prototype was simply outstanding, and easily beats just walking around in the Tuscany demo.  We aim to have more players play test this and give us feedback, while working towards developing an multiplayer version of this, which would further encourage players to look around the scene and push the potential of VR as discs would be able to bounce around the walls. Stay tuned for video demonstrations of VR Disc Wars in action! Created by Allan Xia, Edison Wang, Cody Len

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Second test with portable Oculus Rift and remote Kinect setup to track movement.

This time we added a player model to reflect the skeleton data being tracked by the Kinect.  Despite all the jitter it actually works pretty good.  Much stronger feeling of presence and jumping (and seeing your feet lifting off the ground) feels amazing.  It doesn't look like there's much movement on screen but while wearing the Oculus, even moving small distances is very noticeable.

Currently using Xbox 360 Kinect so this may be the contributing factor for the inaccuracies and jitter.  Can't wait to try the new Kinect for PC when it comes out.

[kognika]

First test of portable Oculus Rift and remote Kinect setup to track movement.

Simply feels amazing, some jitter due to using the Xbox 360 Kinect which has slightly weaker camera to Kinect for PC/ Xbox One Kinect and the newer Kinect for PC soon to be coming out.

However, natural user interface + VR simply feels amazing and the potential for Oculus Rift to engage beyond a seated experience is very exciting.

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Older prototype/experiment from 2013.

After trying the Oculus Rift for the first time we really felt that traditional control schemes contradict the immersion offered by the Rift via 1-to-1 headtracking, as we are trained as players to focus looking forward at the screen when using classic fps controls.

Obviously amazing things are being done with devices like the Hydra, but it's quite difficult to ask the mainstream public to purchase two new devices at once just to play games, especially with the newer generation consoles coming out soon as well.

Thus, after a couple of coffee sessions, we figured why not try using the gyros in smartphones as a motion controller? Humans are trained instinctively to look towards whatever we are pointing or reaching for, so it would be the perfect way to push players to look around more and really utilise the potential of the Rift. We then came up with the gameplay scenario of a drive by shoot out, thus putting the fact that the player's body's lack of movement during gameplay in context, as well as having an arm extended/ moving in all directions make sense.