Jun 18

VR Considerations

So I’m making a VR game but what does this mean?

Primarily it means I will support the Oculus Rift Peripheral as the primary display for the game. But it also means I will be including gameplay that’s designed specifically with the VR unit in mind.
This approach is different from just ‘supporting’ a VR unit, there’s a lot more risk but the reward is also potentially higher.

The way I see it, taking an existing game and adding VR is relatively easy (ignoring UI and control issues) and low risk.
Designing and creating a game that requires VR has the potential to create a much more unique gaming experience. This seems like the most desirable path to follow, however..

Can I sell it? To make it worth investing my time and money, I would need(like) some way of recouping that cost (at the very least).

How big will the market be? This in entirely unknown. Being able to sell a game requires a market (duh) … pricing a game requires knowledge of that market size. Estimates can be made but it’s all guess work.

Should I just ditch the VR requirement? Including redundancies to allow playing without the headset and re-implementing VR specific gameplay elements for non-vr. Actually I think this is potentially the way to go. If a game can hold up on it’s own with the VR ‘gimmicks’ then it’s bound to be a better experience when actually using it’s VR.

When is the Oculus Rift releasing the consumer version? This is important for any financial estimations and release windows. I don’t see the point in releasing any VR only games until after the first Rift is released. Perhaps Oculus will even have their own market place solution for these games and it can become a platform unto itself? Or perhaps one of the major consoles will support it? PS4?

Do I really care about making any money? Well not really but it would be nice to be able to support myself from games without working other jobs!

How long should a play session be? The nature of an immersive 3D experience will limit the length of time someone can play a game. I think somewhere about 20-30 minutes is the ideal time. Maybe even smaller sessions would be desirable. This point would require a lot of testing I think.

If you build it they will come? Maybe it’s a chicken and egg situation, the size of the audience will grow as soon as there is something worth experiencing. One of the biggest advantages could also come from having limited games available in an emerging market. Get in early?

Building a VR game is super exciting, it can change games as we know them. Maybe it’s best to just embrace it and have a bit of a snuggle.

-Ryan

Jun 04

0

Stress and an unfocused mind

By Ryan | Journal | No Comments

Been a while.. Time for another mini brain dump..

I’m feeling quite stressed at the moment! Life is throwing curve balls.
My wife is pregnant, on bed rest and due 2 weeks after the PAX Australia event. This is a whole bag of stress!
Do I cancel PAX and stay home in case it’s early? My usual dev time has been cut to pieces so do I stop trying to put together the PAX demos that were planned? Do I refocus and target something much smaller? Will It be worth going at all if that’s the case? I don’t know. Uggh.

At the moment I’m still planning being there, I just need a little focus time to get ahead of the 8 ball. I’m way behind on the non-dev side of things too, ill have to try organise some flyers and business cards sometime today.

On the plus side, i’m improving my ability to get things done with limited time!

I’m starting to reconsider my wizard beard effort too… It’s getting a bit ridiculous!

Oh and Game of Thrones.. Wtf! I haven’t read the books yet but I’m going to have to now.

<3 -Ryan

Apr 16

0

The GDC Haze

By Ryan | 1gam, Missile Control, Ouya, Screenshots | No Comments

Motivational Haze

HEYO!!!!

It’s been two weeks since I got back home from GDC. In that time I’ve completed approximately nothing and probably gone backwards on some stuff due to lack of attention!

I blame the air travel and time zone shifting. It really fucked me up and I need to find a better way to deal with it next time! It could also be due to general intensity that was the week at GDC. I’ve felt simultaneously inspired and motivated but have been entirely too exhausted to do anything about it.

This week has been a lot better. I’ve felt sane again after a couple of days spent with the family and going to a few local sporting events. Also, starting a bit of physical fitness activity has cleared the head a bit.

Overall I think I’ll need to plan my schedule better around the GDC time next year.

#OneGameAMonth

I’ll blame GDC here again… I failed to make anything resembling a game during March! I’m pretty disappointed in the effort. I really thought I’d be able to pump something out. I had a bit of crazy real life shit leading up to my trip that put a block on getting anything done. Oh well. I haven’t decided if I’m going to resume the effort yet.

The Next Big Thing

So wtf am I doing now after the recovery? Well we initially considered switching back to the tactical shooter we’ve been prototyping for a while but we realised we still don’t have all the pieces in place to execute it well enough. This led us to come up with something different….Project:M which will lead us into PAX AUS and beyond! The details will be saved for the PAX event… meanwhile…

Missile Control: Onslaught

One of the other games we’ve played with recently is a new mode variant of Missile Control called Onslaught. It focuses more on a high score chase and uses a gamepad as the primary control system (touch screens still work fine). This is the game we are looking at bringing to the Ouya. I also plan on patching the game mode into Missile Control on iOS /Android. Here’s a screenie running on the Ouya: