In looking across the tech spectrum of physics I came across this video which I found to be very inspirational. Stranglehold used a ton of physics systems and this was an area I had a lot of experience in and wanted to leverage for the new work. Several years earlier I was the Lead Designer on John Woo Presents Stranglehold. Try to come up with an idea that spoke to the current Zeitgeist, a topic or spin on things that we knew people already enjoyed in other media.Be aware of session length in VR and try to solve for that in a way that made sense for the creative.Make the world as simulated as possible so that it could be beautiful and convincingly alive.Make the experience sticky by tying it to a “page-turning” narrative, maybe some sort of mystery or detective story?.Give the player something fun to do while giving them a story reason for doing it.That we needed to embrace the touristic VR fantasy, place the player in a world that was richly compelling, one they wanted to pick at and discover more about. We thought of this as VR 2.0 and asked what would be the tent poles for such a work? The things that jumped out to us were: Many games featured static worlds that were beautiful to look at, but often couldn’t be interacted with in compelling or natural ways.įrom this shortlist we were able to create some desired parameters to guide the next phase of our discovery work. Most of the early games or experiences had little story or context.Games we played had a fun VR centric mechanic vs.The sense of being teleported to another reality is amazing and unparalleled.We couldn’t support tons of features or vast scope so we had to choose carefully which elements we would define as the game’s “tent poles.” From our look at the VR market, we determined the following statements were generally true of initial offerings. We spent time asking the question: “How is first generation VR succeeding, and where is it falling short?” As a small team with a small budget, it was important for us to determine early where we would place our creative bets. This was our first experience in room scale VR and everyone was very excited about the creative space and potential. I had a Vive rig at home so the team got together over beers and we looked at some of the initial releases titles like The Blu, Job Simulator and Valve’s The Lab. As the Creative Director of the team, I've always felt it’s important to fuse learning new things (keeping your knife sharp) with a story or creative context the team is excited about (the wrapper). VR was a strong talking point across the industry as so little was known about it, so it seemed like a good direction as there was no doubt the team could learn a lot by working in such a new medium. When we first started the IP discovery process here at Aspyr we didn’t have a specific title in mind to build. We chat with Neill Glancy, Creative Director for Torn, to discover what it took to bring a VR title from its early brainstorming sessions to shipping its final code.Ĭan you give us some background on Torn and how the project came about? All the while, the player is pulled deeper into the rich narrative and story building that Aspyr has worked so diligently to create.Įncountering problems that traditional development may never have to think of, Aspyr leaned on Unreal Engine 4 as it endeavored to truly make a mark in the VR landscape. A narrative puzzle game by design, the player will bring the mansion to life while reactivating the scientist’s many mysterious machines. One such title is Aspyr’s Torn, releasing August 28 for PSVR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive.Ī dark science fiction mystery inspired by television shows like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, Torn offers a journey into the world of an eccentric inventor/scientist and the spooky mansion he left behind after going missing 64 years ago. While a large number of VR titles merely manage to demonstrate the basic capabilities of the medium, a select few are pushing the boundaries and breaking past barriers to showcase what’s possible. By Shawn Petraschuk If you’ve spent any time with a virtual reality headset on, you likely know that VR experiences come in many forms with varying degrees of depth and quality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |