WHEN a small company called Oculus announced that it was building a virtual reality headset in 2012, it sent expectations soaring. The hope was for a device that might finally deliver on the promise of VR – which had become the butt of jokes after a run of false starts in the 1980s and 90s. The moment of truth will arrive this week, when the Oculus Rift launches – along with a few dozen games that aim to kick-start the VR gaming revolution.
The line-up includes games that let you conquer Everest, repair an orbiting space station and even take part in a ballet. One, Job Simulator, even puts you in a world where robots have replaced human workers and simulations are the only way to experience a life of nine-to-five employment.
The Rift, which launches on 28 March, will be joined on 5 April by the Vive, made by HTC and Valve. Sony’s Playstation VR system is due in October. And earlier this month, Canadian start-up Sulon revealed yet another rival headset,coming this Spring.
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Few technologies have been so hotly anticipated. But what will people make of them? The success of VR rests on the types of experiences it will offer. Many are versions of existing games that have been adapted to VR. For example, the view from your cockpit when travelling between stars in Elite Dangerous will now be more overwhelming than ever.
But it is the games developed specifically for VR that could change the way we play. As well as the headset, VR games often make use of controllers that track your movements. These let you treat a controller as a gun – pointing it to aim as you would a real one – or as a rope that you have to grip to climb a rock face, or a basketball you have to slam dunk. Motion controllers themselves are not new, but their greater sensitivity combined with the full immersion of a headset that covers your eyes and ears leads to extremely vivid experiences.
It sounds obvious, but what virtual reality lets us do is make the virtual a reality, says VR developer Xárene Eskandar at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “You are present more than with any other medium. It has your full attention.”
But a big challenge facing the VR industry is describing what that is like to those who have not tried it. “It is almost impossible to convey the experience through any medium other than VR,” says Alex Knoll, co-founder of game studio Stress Level Zero, based in LA.
It’s like trying to sell a colour TV in a world where only black and white TVs exist, says Steve Bowler at Phosphor Games in Chicago, which has made VR horror game The Brookhaven Experiment. “We have to get you in the virtual world with the headset on your face before you believe us that it’s amazing.”
Game makers have had to overcome more practical issues too. One is how to give players a sense of freedom and movement when playing in their living room. Tripping over furniture and bumping into walls in one reality while you are saving the world – or flipping burgers – in another can quickly break the spell. A wireframe showing where the edges of a room are can be superimposed over the virtual world to stop you hurting yourself. But most games also give you reasons not to move around too much. For example, in Stress Level Zero’s Hover Junkers, a game where you fight on hovercraft, players are advised to choose a ship that is roughly the same size as the room they’re playing in.
In other games, players stand in one spot and move around in the game by teleporting, for example. This also partly addresses the problem of motion sickness that many people experienced with VR software. Games have several other tricks to deal with this too. In Hover Junkers, the ships hover so there is very little bouncing, creating less conflict between what you see in the virtual world and what you feel in the real one. The ships also do not turn unless the player twists their body.
Even standing still, there is a lot of opportunity for visceral action. In The Brookhaven Experiment players stand their ground against waves of monsters. Because the experience is so realistic, players reflexively step backwards when confronted, turn away and shield their face when hit, or lash out with their hands in defence.
A handful of players have stopped playing because it is too frightening. For Bowler this is a sign of success. “We’re actually a bit thrilled that The Brookhaven Experiment might be too scary for some players.”
“We’re actually a bit thrilled that The Brookhaven Experiment might be too scary for some players“
Although nascent, the potential of consumer VR is clear. The best experiences do not simply try to adapt the conventions of screen-based media, says Eskandar. Using VR just to display 360° video is pointless, she says. “It’s just a flat screen wrapped around your head.”
Eskandar is developing a VR puzzle game called The Clocksmith’s Labyrinth. She thinks that by separating us from the physical constraints of one reality, VR experiences could ultimately give us fresh ways of conceptualising things.
“I’m curious to see how humans will evolve with this medium,” says Eskandar. “My dream is that 20 to 30 years down the road, one of the kids who has played these games can solve a cosmological puzzle that finds the multiverse.”
The brookhaven experiment
A horror game in which you must survive an onslaught from hordes of monsters. Danger approaches from all sides, so you have to keep looking over your shoulder. Armed with a pistol and a limited supply of bullets, every shot counts. But as the tension mounts, your aim waivers. Unlike most games, you fire with a motion controller held like a gun, rather than a mouse or joystick. The experience is realistic enough that the developers say they can tell which players know how to use a real gun.
Job Simulator
Office job getting you down? Now you can escape into a simulation of a simulation of a different one. In this game, all jobs have been taken by robots. To keep themselves amused, humans have developed simulations of what it was like to be an employee in the good old days – cooking in a restaurant kitchen, sitting at a supermarket checkout, keeping busy in an office cubicle. Largely an excuse to have fun interacting with virtual versions of everyday objects, the game is a lot more enjoyable than it sounds.
The Climb
A hundred metres up, the boats in the beautiful bay look like toys. Your eyes are fixed on the next ledge, however. You cling to the rock face by squeezing the triggers on two motion controllers held in each hand, and move to the next hand-hold by looking in its direction and reaching for it. As you climb, you also have to stop to reapply chalk as your character’s hands get sweaty. Sometimes the only way to proceed is to leap, which is guaranteed to get the heart pumping. Players compete for fastest ascents or can watch others tackle tricky climbs.
Tilt Brush
When you’re done with role-playing and just feel like doodling, this game lets you sketch lines in the air around you. You can then walk around and view your creations from different angles. The extra dimension gives you lots of new ways to interact with them – you could draw a door and walk through it, for example. You create your pictures by using the motion controller as a paintbrush and you can then share them online. The big bold strokes make players look like Jackson Pollock. Indeed, we may soon see the first VR art gallery.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Get deep in the game”
