Omni Game Development Ideas and Feedback

Omni_Dev_CameronOmni_Dev_Cameron Posts: 42
in Omni Game Ideas
Hey guys,

This is is my first post, and I wanted to properly introduce myself. My name is Cameron, and I am a game designer at Virtuix. My job is to make game demos and experiences tailored specifically for the Omni. My main concern for my job is to create content that the VR community (all of you) will be able to experience when you finally have the hardware in your hands. Since my goal is to create content that the community would find enjoyable, I figured, what better way to find out than to just ask.

This discussion is not for games that are already out that you would like to play on the Omni, but rather types of demos or experiences that you would like to have, regardless of whether or not that game already exists. I am interested in hearing what you want to be able to do when you get your Omni. What genre, game style, competitive or leisure, fighting or exploration, on rails or open world, futuristic or historic, PC(Oculus Rift) or Mobile(Samsung Gear). Tell me the things that matter most to you when it comes to the game. Do you care more about graphics and what it looks like in the HMD, or gameplay and how it feels on the Omni.

This discussion will be the best way for you to give me feedback on the content creation, and the experiences that you want to have.

For those of you who were able to go to CES, or saw videos of CES, we were showing off the new production Omni with a new piece of content called "TraVR: Training Ops". Whether you got to see it in person, play it, or just saw it on a video, any feedback from that would also be appreciated.

It is awesome to be able to join the VR community as a member of Virtuix, and I hope that we can work together to create the best VR experiences.

Comments

  • TrabbiTrabbi Posts: 19
    hello cameron,

    what I've learned since I'm using the rift (dk1 and dk2) is that I'm completely fine and almost rather prefer exploring a new world without that much action. While having some action is indeed fun, in elite dangerous for example I prefer exploring the world or doing calm things like trading or doing courier stuff rather than getting into fights (which again can also be very fun and exciting). In terms of game style I just can say that without a doubt rapture is the place I would like to visit in vr by far the most. This game and especially the atmosphere and design is just from another world. So as a backer of the omni I would love to see a slow-paced exploration game which is set in a world or place like rapture where you are just amazed and maybe slightly scared by your surroundings. Of course nobody can demand a game or a demo with an atmosphere like bioshock, which is one of the greatest game of all time in my opinion, but you get the idea of what at least I would be excited to experience with the oculus rift and the omni.

    (and if you could support priovr and/or stem system aswell I would be very thankful :p)

    cheers!
  • JorgenJorgen Posts: 108
    edited January 2015
    Hi ! And good luck with that task of asking people what games they want to play: you risk being overwhelmed with demands ! :)

    First, to answer you question, I will begin with the most obvious (but that could be debated) : 3D environments, with first person views and "human-shaped" characters.
    This seems a decent basis for an application you want to immerse in... :)
    I am not very found of the idea of using the omni to control a character on screen, with a third person view, for example...

    Then, I think the kind of application "standing" VR would be the best are:
    - All kinds of games in which pedestrian navigation is central: racing, fleeing from monsters, avoiding things... (mirror's edge comes to my mind)
    - Applications involving large and nice-looking open worlds (virtual tourism or games like Skyrim, Farcry...)
    - Horror games, where VR can multiply the fearsome experience (even if not personally found of them)
    - Any game in which the environment is a key element... like the bioshock games, as @Trabbi‌ suggested
    - Multi-user application involving cooperation / communication: building a 3D model together, VR-conference, games like Minecraft.
    - Applications training your running stamina, monitoring your progress over time.
    - Research studies on pedestrian navigation and interaction with their environment (why I ordered one)

    What is to avoid, in my opinion:
    - Competitive multiplayer games, as I do not think VR to be developed enough to compete with keyboard-mouse on the efficiency level.
    - Games involving a lot of controls like MMO
    - Games involving motions that could no be matched to the Omni : super jumps, flying, complex combo moves...
    - Applications involving mostly driving, obviously

    So, let's monitor people efforts and behaviour in a cooperative horror-themed virtual tourism application of an open and nice-looking city ... :-°
  • JorgenJorgen Posts: 108
    Ho, and because I only answered to a part of your question:

    In my opinion, the interest of fighting in the game will mostly depend on the other used tracking systems:
    - The real interest for gun-fighting games will appear when a correct aiming solution will exist, allowing to decouple the looking and aiming directions. VR is not such a great addition to FPS games until you are able to run while firing blindly at something following you ! :)
    - Same thing for sword-fighting games : not such a great thing until you have a good device to track your hand moves ... hopefully including haptic feedback (Reactive Grip, we await your return)
    But, since you are part of Virtuix, best to focus on the navigation part: time to prove the world what Omni can achieve in the VR field ! :)

    As for the choice of platform, PC and RIFT, definitely !



  • Omni_Dev_CameronOmni_Dev_Cameron Posts: 42
    Hey @Trabbi, thanks for your response.
    I agree it seems to me that the VR experiences that I have enjoyed the most have had the least action. It may just be because being in VR is still a novel experience, but it is really entertaining for me to just walk around a world, and explore the architecture and environment. There are definitely a number of places I would like to visit, and rapture would definitely be at the top of the list. Also we are definitely looking into utilizing other input systems with our demos.
  • Omni_Dev_CameronOmni_Dev_Cameron Posts: 42
    Hey @Jorgen , thanks for your response.
    I agree that virtual tourism or open world games would definitely be a cool area to explore with demos. There are many places I would like to visit in the world, and VR is a cheap way to copy the feeling of traveling somewhere. Horror games do have a lot of potential in VR, and many people suggest running away from zombies as an experience that they want to have. We are looking into potential multiplayer applications, as we feel like that would be an extremely fun experience to have on the Omni.
    If we were to try any scenarios with competitive multiplayer games, I believe we would do it in situations where everyone playing is playing on the omni. So that the keyboard-mouse players don’t have an advantage or vice-versa.
    I agree that MMO controls and movement that can’t be matched would be good to avoid, as they easily break immersion.
    A game with some driving would be fine, but games that rely on driving would be a waste of the Omni’s talents.
    I also think you have a good point in saying that fighting in games relies on the other input systems being used. I am looking forward to the day when I can play a FPS with a fully tracked gun.
  • sutekiBsutekiB Posts: 1,066
    Hi @Omni_Dev_Cameron it was a pleasure to meet you at CES and I loved playing TraVR: Training Ops which I thought was awesome. Level design and aesthetic were excellent. It was challenging enough that it became very satisfying to shoot multiple targets quickly, and hard to resist fist-pumping if you did it without missing a shot, especially after knocking out the exploding targets! It showed me the potential for competitive 'shooting gallery' style games where the objective is to beat the best time. It's addictive, and an effective workout. I liked the fact that ignoring targets reduced your score, but I wasn't sure if accuracy was also recorded? I think I only had one play-through where I hit each target without missing, would have been nice if there were some audible/visual recognition like 'perfect!' (unless there is, and I missed one without noticing, ha).

    What I would like to see next is my avatar in the game. I think it would be best if users had a selection of customisable avatars that were appropriate for different genres. It would be great if these avatars could be ported into other VR games and social applications including MMOs. I imagine this is quite a challenge but if developers could work together to make this possible, it would be an important breakthrough. Your avatar is very helpful for immersion, and recognising other players. Having the option to customise your own with armour or clothing obtained as rewards for completing missions in various games (or items designed yourself) would be super cool. Maybe some utility could be developed to help the import procedure? I may be asking for the impossible here (are there compatibility issues with different engines?) but I believe there would be a huge benefit if it could be achieved.

    I look forward to beta-testing your next project! :)
    Community Manager at Virtuix
  • Omni_Dev_CameronOmni_Dev_Cameron Posts: 42
    Hey @sutekiB it was a pleasure to meet you as well. I'm glad you enjoyed playing TraVR: Training Ops. I hope I can make significant improvements to the experience before you get to try it next. Accuracy was recorded, but did not affect your score in the version of the game that you played. I am still investigating a good way to incorporate that into the score without adding a lot of frustration. I do like the idea of some audible/visual recognition like 'perfect!' if you accomplish 100% accuracy. It is difficult to do, and rewarding when you accomplish it, and I agree that the game should respond with the proper excitement.

    As far as customizable avatars across multiple VR games, although I agree that would be absolutely incredible, that would extremely challenging to accomplish. Even consoles like Xbox and Wii have still struggle at getting the avatars or miis in all of their games. Each developer would have to do significant work to create a system that would allow for this amount of collaboration. Although I do agree, it would help with immersion and it would be amazing. Hopefully we can see something like this in the future.
  • sutekiBsutekiB Posts: 1,066
    Excited to hear you're still working on it @Omni_Dev_Cameron! Have you thought about adding some multiplier whereby the greater the distance from your target, the more points you get? I agree you'd want to balance it so that you don't punish the ones who like to run through and blast at close range, whilst still rewarding those who prefer to stop and take careful aim from afar. Perhaps by displaying both a pure time and an overall points score you can avoid any frustration, though it might mean having two leader-boards at the end.

    Also how about adding a ghost like in driving games, so you can see how your friends moved through the level?
    Community Manager at Virtuix
  • Omni_Dev_CameronOmni_Dev_Cameron Posts: 42
    Yea, we are currently looking into how we might add a multiplayer aspect into the game. I have never seen a ghost mode in VR, so that would have to be tested to see how it feels, but I think that could be cool.
  • JorgenJorgen Posts: 108
    I used systems using these kind of ghosts in VR.
    But it was in a CAVE system, not HMD...

    Anyway, it works well.
    It's just even weirder when you "enter" the ghost mesh and see its geometry from inside, with all the usual artefacts...
  • Omni_Dev_CameronOmni_Dev_Cameron Posts: 42
    Yea, that's why I was skeptical. It seems like being inside the other mesh would ruin the immersion.
  • sutekiBsutekiB Posts: 1,066
    I agree, it would have to fade out if you got too close.
    Community Manager at Virtuix
  • jayhigsjayhigs Posts: 1
    I would love to see an mmorpg where you can slash and slash and slash enemies to level up and i think MMORPG's would be super amazing ........or a Final Fantasy game .... one of them two would keep me entertained for months lol
  • xxann5xxann5 Posts: 593
    edited April 2015
    Hi Cameron

    I have to agree with @Jorgen
    In my opinion, the interest of fighting in the game will mostly depend on the other used tracking systems
    With just the Omni and a "dumb" controler I would love to see an exploration/Puzzle game like MYST, or Riven(obviously in full 3D) which are two of my most-favoritest games of all time.

    Now once there is a gun controller that will allow decoupled movement, head tracking, and gun tracking, such as the haptech demo gun(formerly StrikerVR) with a STEM system or sticking a lighthouse tracker on say that cabelas gun then I would love to hop into a first person shooter such as HL2 or FarCry3/4. I am really not interested in using the "face gun" method of aiming, not that I won't if the time comes and i don't have a tracked controler.

    I also second @sutekiB comment about having a ghost of you best time (optional) in TraVR Training OPS to give you some motivation when that smug prick that was your past self is actually beating you! :D
  • xxann5xxann5 Posts: 593
    edited April 2015
    I am somewhat ashamed that untill yesterday I have never heard of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter nevermind played it. I absolutly love these types of games. However i am actually rather pleased now that it is getting native Oculus support.. The game play footage looked like all you need is a controler with one or two buttons to select things.

    After the TraVR games that come with the Omni this will probably be the first game I play, looks tailor built for the omni
  • AscensiAscensi Posts: 119
    Omni_Dev_Cameron I'm working on my own gaming VR environment for my arcade/studio and although I would be able to make a 3D model of the treadmill when I finally receive mine but I am sure you guys already have one. I would like a PBR Prop/model of the treadmill with the movable locks for the harness. My idea is that in my studio/the real world, it will actually look like the beginning area in the VR world so when someone enters the virtual world it looks like they are still in the studio "partially". I think this would be a great VR 3D Asset to be included with the Omni SDK so all developers can optionally use it and have it appear like a smooth transition from the real world into the virtual like a teleporter -not only that you can program the Virtual Omni game prop to trigger the game to end/pause as an so that people can decide by walking into it or have it at special areas in the game -forced breaks, extra VR control panel buttons, receive next missions etc.
  • AscensiAscensi Posts: 119
    Voice Recognition
    Hey I thought this might help you implement a new kind of navigation, quest system, direct AI, voice activated menu, event trigger/spawn etc without having to do a lot of research.

    I chose this because I think this is essential to use text instead of audio files keywords - apparently this works with Window Recognition system.

    http://leadingones.com/articles/voice-recognition.html

    Few reasons why I don't want to use pre recorded audio voice matching with audio based keywords.
    1. Files Space & extra programming just to get player's voices to work -often there is a problem with player's voice matching pre-recorded word recorded in someone else's voice.
    2. I don't want players to have to record their voices in order for the system to recognize their words and to make it fun I don't want to tell the player/customer that there is voice recognition system in the game or specifically that their voice can drive the game - I want to surprise them when they are playing the game such things being triggered from the player saying common words like "wow, crap, enemy, get, shoot etc".. A game can then have more of a mystery to how it works/plays out.

    This is what I'm adding to my projects to make it more dynamic, random almost forever changing.
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