10 Things I Learned From Making VR Games
Starting my second year at ETC, it’s time to quickly take a look at the VR games we’ve made so far. Being the UI and UX designer, sometimes 3D artist on the teams, I built four games and one 360 video in VR environment. Here are a few things I learned. Comment below and tell me what you think!
Meant to flush out these thoughts for a long time. Ah… writing is hard.
1. Know your hardware
We have tried game experiences on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Touch, Google Cardboard, Daydream. Sometimes combined with other platforms like PS move, Leap Motion, even Makie Makie. It is more fun to build cross-platform experience!
Know your platform. All the hardware above have different features and dev kits. Here are a few you should look up if you are new to VR
Oculus Rift | Samsung Gear VR | HTC Vive | Oculus Touch | Google Cardboard | Google Daydream
2. Never put anything behind the guest
One simple rule, don’t place anything important behind the guest. The rules like cone of focus and kitchen triangle that can by applied in VR design. Almost never they look behind the shoulder unless there are moving objects leading the attention (this fails sometimes too).
UI designer in VR is more like a interior designer. In our 360 videos, we tried leading focus with lighting, movement, 360 sound, and they worked pretty well.
3. Use indirect control
VR environment can be distractive sometimes. In order to tell the story, designers need to manipulate guest’s attention. Make use of color, lights, sound effects.
Escort 314 was a VR game where the guest sits in a boat with a prisoner navigating through an open water. There is absolutely no instruction or tutorial. Guest has to figure out how to drive the boat, what to do with the passenger and what the goal is.
We used floating buoys (with flashing light and bell sound) to lead the guest towards the island; reef to block the open sea; lighted prison on the island to attract the guest’s attention.
Other things you can try is shadow/sound of an object not in the view (worked really well in an elevator horror game), motion lead from other characters in the scene (walking, dancing, flying towards the direction you want the guest to look at), or pointing, literally pointing.
4. Be careful with motion sickness
Believe it or not, you can barf testing your own games. When camera moves unexpectedly. Into a wall. The best way so far to move around in VR space is by teleporting.
Some horrible examples are (I’ve seen them myself):
Using arrow keys on the keyboard to move;
Locking the camera and using the joysticks on Oculus Touch controllers to move (one for camera view one for position);
Putting the guest on a roller coaster without anything stationary in the view
…
5. layout of all resources
Love Punch is a game in Vive where the guest stands in the middle of an arena and punch off enemies from all directions. The scale of the arena became a problem for us.
Our first playtester complained about the arena being too big. It almost felt too peaceful for a fighting game. A week later, Professor Jesse Schell tested our game and told us he felt that his personal space was getting invaded so much that it was uncomfortable.
The position, size, and distance of your resources can change the experience dramatically.
In the 360 video, we wanted to make use of the space in the nice cafe. After a few test shots, We found that if it’s further than 10 feet away, objects or actors will blend in the background and can no longer grab guest’s attention.
6. Traditional interactions vs. VR interactions
Should it still be a button? If yes, a floating 2D button, or a physical push button? Should I push thought it, or push it away?
HUD is not a good practice in VR most of times. Try to leverage spacial interactions in VR, using lasso, laser, or direct touch. One gesture might works much better than the other depending on what game you are making.
Not having HUD doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to attach anything to the camera. Putting the guest in a stationary setting(car seat, robot pilot room…) can significantly help with motion sickness.
7. Prototyping and mock up for VR
Test your prototype as early as possible. Throw basic models into the game environment, so you know what it feels like. Use real world measurement, inch, foot etc.
Sketching is tricky. Storyboard does make as much sense as usual. You can use Lego for stage blocking and take pictures of the scene. It’s proved to be very useful when shooting 360 films. Also a lot of fun!
This is an area that interests me the most. The pipeline is a pain in ass, even within a small team. After looking around for a while, there seems to be no efficient way to prototype for VR. Most of individual methods require designers to
- either draw on a distorted grid on paper,
- or learn Unity themselves and test their design,
- or wait for 3D artist and programmers to finish the whole cycle to see the result.
I will write another post about my thoughts and solutions on this. Please comment if you know any good resources!
8. Never stop playtesting / user testing
Aaaand the golden rule: playtest as much as you can. Besides normal bugs, VR has calibration problems; people are of different height; some people are more sensitive to motion sickness, and some will get tired after waving the controllers for five minutes. Things like font size and distance between objects also require a lot of playtesting.
9. Typography matters in new media
Most of the time we try not to use much text within the games. Having paragraphs of tutorial or backstories means you are not able to design intuitive interactions or environmental details that tell the narrative. Btw no one reads. Let alone in VR.
However, sometimes when we do need text, it is extremely important to make it right. For example, creating system interface of the platform, Tilt Brush tool kit UI. To make sure the content is readable at certain distance, or under certain lighting, it requires many playtests/user tests.
As a designer it is important to learn at least the basics about typography and really pay attention to it in your works. I am so glad that I took Ms. Shelley Yee’s class on typography.
10. Just like any design practice, it follows the basic principles
Well, you know. Hierarchy, contrast, balance, rhythm, unity, proportion, emphasis…
Consistency, engagement, visibility, feedback, constraints, mapping, affordance…
And motion.
Whether it’s a shooting star or game changer, VR and other mixed reality is an interesting space for UI and UX designers to explore. All the mentioned games above took us no longer than two weeks. We made so many mistakes but had even more fun.
I hope there will soon be design systems for VR, like how we have Material design and Apple HIG for designing mobile and web. And hopefully I get to be one to contribute to them :) Comment below and let me know what I was doing/not doing right!
Games we made
Love Punch on HTC Vive
Dino Ranch on Oculus + PS move
Seed on HTC Vive
Escort 314 on Oculus + Leap motion
360 video recored with Ricoh
