Dance Central VR is not just any game, it’s an experience – a lifestyle. You can now indulge in a virtual partying or clubbing environment at the convenience of being at home. Yet, it is also not just a place to gather and dance together, but to also interact with characters in the scene and feel safe to unleash your hidden dance talents. If you have played and enjoyed the past titles of non-VR Dance Central, this game takes your music immersion to the next level.

Seamless Flow from Previous Titles

Harmonix has released various versions on non-VR platforms prior to the 2019 VR version. They have made a noticeable effort to keep characters who were previously present in the older versions. For seasoned players of this series, it gives them a sense of instant connection with the game and it feels less foreign to be dancing with familiar appearances. For newer players, it gives them relevant insights on how other versions are like without having to play them. The game mechanics remain the same for the essential part – the dancing itself. Players still get to choose their favourite tracks and emulate dance moves shown on the screen. As an upgrade, what I really appreciate is the fact that the characters now are more diverse in culture, experiences and also proportions. This adaptation made it more relatable for users as it mirrors the real society’s current efforts to embrace differences in people across the globe

Usage of Characters

The characters are used as a way to provide dance tutorials and a guide for users to visually learn how to dance by copying what they see. I was impressed by the amount of thought placed into designing the characters, as the level of interaction with them is sufficiently deep to immerse you into a whole new social circle whenever you play. Each character has a story to tell, and they are highly relatable to real life scenarios (such as wealth and daddy issues). The mode of interaction requires you to be familiar with the environment and players can text them or even receive a voice message from them! What is really interesting is that despite having a fixed set of songs to dance with, the same song feels different when you dance with different people. In a sense, the game discreetly provides different game paths through the emotions and experience with the characters so that players will constantly find entertainment at their own will.

Ambience and Setting

Together with the presence of interactions within the game, the environment plays a very big significance in making the whole gameplay feel real. You will really feel as if you are partying you are the main character in the club. When you hit combos and the song gets more hyped up, the mood changes are further enhanced by animations and lighting around you and your dance partner. The loading of tracks are also seamless and does not take you out of the experience. Such subtle differences contribute to the emotions players may experience as they dance throughout the songs, thus intrinsically providing motivation to perform better.

Competition

Players can dance alone or with other players in battles. From my personal experiences as a dancer, dance battles in our society are seen more of an exchange, appreciating each other’s hard work and celebrating successes. In this case, the idea of incorporation battles as competition brings this concept over to the virtual world and makes the competitiveness more natural and welcoming. It feels more like a gathering – which links with the setting and story. Even when dancing alone, it brings positive emotions and players can treat it as a self competition, where they practice to be better versions of themselves. This approach provides entertainment and incentives without disturbing the core essence of what it is to enjoy dancing for yourself and with others.

Room for improvement

A possible downside is that despite the characters having strong interactions, the depth of story and plot is not consistent across characters. This means that players may tend to be closer to certain characters over time because they simply offer more. A viable option is to add more story or plot to the characters lacking in it. However, I feel that the connection you feel with someone may not necessarily be proportional to the amount of information you know about each other. Rather, perhaps a better way would be to improve on the frequency of initiative taken by the character(s) to contact the player during gameplay so that more meaningful impressions can be made.

Personal thoughts

Overall, this game gives players a highly stable and holistic VR rhythm experience. It even includes small details such as having a wardrobe of clothes to choose from and dress up before entering the club, having people welcome you as you navigate into the area and possessing a personal phone to play tracks or communicate with others. Fun fact : your interaction with one character affects how another character might perceive their interaction with you. Personally I would say there are no misses in this game, only hits (and combos).

As a gamer, the Half-Life series was one of the first games that I played. A first-person shooter that traversed the lands, battling humans, zombies, headcrabs alike. After years of silence, the full-length game built from the ground up for Virtual Reality, Half-Life: Alyx was finally announced in 2020.

This game has being released as a VR-only game to show the focus of the development of the game to be centered around the VR experience, of which has earned them The Game Award for Best VR/AR Game for 2020.

Why the game is such a hit:

Aside from the fantastic storyline that the half-life series has always delivered. The gaming experience was phenomenal.

Weapon interactivity in VR:
Each gun has just the right amount of interactivity to let you know you’re handling something with multiple moving parts. But it’s not so complex that it becomes a burden. The handgun, the first weapon you’re given, is a great example. To use it, you have to grab a magazine out of your backpack, slam it into the grip, and pull the slide to put a round in the chamber.

Reloading is done by hitting a button to drop the magazine and repeating those same actions listed above. Imagine you are crouching behind a pile of cinder blocks, pulling magazines out, loading them and racking a round before physically standing up and returning fire as bullets whiz past your head. It’s a workout that feels like an action movie.

VR Immersion:
The screen being what your eye can see definitely helped, but it was also backed by fantastic sound and environment design to truly immerse yourself in the game. However, there are certainly some issues that this medium possessed.

Points of improvement:

The game allows for “continuous” movement, to mimic actually moving through its meticulously designed environments. However, there is so much happening in the world of Alyx, even when you’re standing completely still. It could be a dizzying, disorienting experience as you see you are moving, but you know you are not. This is why a lot of players opt for “blinking” through steps, the VR compromise for anyone who gets motion sickness. This is an on-going issue that continues to be tackled today. It could be made better through segmenting the game into short blocks so as to prevent overloading the players.

Nonetheless, the possibilities of VR just grows by the day and we are taking this module to uncover more.

The pandemic has been caused a huge impact on the world we knew just 2 years ago. Tremendous shifts to lockdowns and Work From Home arrangements have forced many to abandon their usual outdoor schedules and lifestyles. While some have continued or turned to outdoor exercises like jogging and cycling, many others continue to lead more sedentary lifestyles while enjoying the comfort of home. Or rather yet, working out at home can be really boring, especially the feeling of being cramped in a small space while doing your calisthenics workout. However, things are about to change.

Enter HOLOFIT, a VR Fitness app for your VR headset. It connects to fitness equipment like rowing machines, ellipticals/bikes, or cadence sensors for running movement tracking. It uses Bluetooth which sends your workout data to HOLOFIT. That is how your movements are tracked in virtual reality, perfectly synchronized with what you’re doing on your fitness machine.

HOLOFIT helps make your fitness fun, keeps you motivated and gives you the chance to connect with other members from around the world, all from your fitness machine.

VR Fitness has actually been scientifically proven to lessen workout pain because you’re distracted, so you end up working out for longer. Different game modes keep you motivated and keep you coming back for more, while all the amazing worlds keep you entertained.

Personally, I love this application of VR to physical exercise. It is reminiscent of the Wii Sports system years back, where it was revolutionary to be able to swing the remote to play virtual sports on the TV screen. However, times have changed. With technology now more than ever capable of supporting immersive virtual experiences, user engagement in these virtual sports is higher than ever before. Being able to look around the virtual environment while “running” (mimicking the running movements of the arms) makes a big difference compared to watching an avatar on the screen.

What’s more, the multiplayer capability takes the immersion to a whole new level. Seeing other players in the metaverse exercising also triggers that social itch and sense of competitiveness in the human spirit, and nothing powers a good workout more than competition.

The creators of HOLOFIT have also gone and harnessed the fact that anything can be done in the virtual world. Running in abandoned mines, in the snowy mountains, and ancient Egyptian landscapes are all examples of why the experience can be even more exciting than in real life, being able to visit the ends of the Earth from the safety of your own living room; the toilet, kitchen and bed are close-by, not to mention the shelter above your head when raining.

Still, the current HOLOFIT requires a monthly subscription to be able to use their services, which might be a barrier of entry to most casual players looking to join. Why pay for an exercise game when I have “EPIC ROLLERCOASTERS” and many other free alternatives in the VR game catalogue? Also, while I find the graphics decent enough for a casual session, it still has room for further improvement considering the capabilities of graphics engines like Unreal Engine 5 today. Consideration of long-term immersion has to definitely include good graphics, as the visual sense is responsible for 80% of our learning.

Overall, HOLOFIT is a step in the right direction. It is a living and breathing application of the VR capabilities to fitness, albeit with some barriers to entry and room to improve on graphics. Still, I’m sure this sets a precedent for other companies to build bigger and better fitness VR games in the future, alongside many other applications VR has to offer. Perhaps one day, outdoor exercise would be a thing of the past.

BehaVR largely believes in helping people work through feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear, towards a safer and improved state of well-being. Their goal is to make mental healthcare accessible to all by building coping skills through the transformative, readily available medium of VR and currently sells therapeutic software on pre-loaded headsets to health care providers.

VR has been used somewhat recently to tackle various disorders, notably, PTSD, anxiety and phobias. The concern regarding such disorders has risen as the pandemic has brought along widespread anxiety and increased rates of PTSD. As someone who has always been interested in wellness apps, I wanted to take a look to see what are the existing options available in VR that aims to improve the general well-being of people.

Why they are engaging

One of their featured programs is CenteredVR which helps to rewire the brain in a natural way, leveraging the unmatched neurological powers of VR. This helps people to conquer chronic stress and relearn more appropriate, healthy responses to stress that serve their health long-term.

They get to experience in-class expertise from behavioral health experts from the VR sessions and receive guided meditation in an immersive setting. From here they will learn to build a foundation of coping and relaxation techniques.

Another program that they have is RecoVRy which can augment the help sought by people with substance use disorders to pave a more effective path to addiction recovery. It is uniquely positioned to target the dysregulated neurocognitive processes that underlie and exacerbate addiction.

This allows the patients to have a safe space to build a sense of shared experience and community that has no risk of stigmatization.

What features are well done

One of the best parts of VR is how immersive it is and BehaVR has done well in creating an all immersive experience to capture the patient’s attention and activate the brain’s 4 learning centres. This allows experiences to be encoded more efficiently and helps them to be less stressed out in such welcoming, safe environments.

Visual help such as guided meditators and augmented humans can make the experience all the more engaging in the comforts of their own home in an interesting and new environment.

What features can be improved and how

One type of behavioural therapy usually used for the treatment of PTSD is exposure therapy and VR is an excellent tool to use to simulate environments as closely as possible to the patient’s most feared situation in a safe manner as all details can be controlled by the technician.

Most of the programs right now primarily use VR as a visual enhancement in wellness tools however I believe more can be taken advantage of using VR to tackle more serious forms of anxiety by utilising the visual environment as a form of exposure therapy and not just having largely audio-related help with accompanying visual backgrounds. I believe that it does not stretch the potential of VR which can be used to mimic real life scenarios to treat more serious forms of disorders.

Common more civilian-related phobias can be easily replicated in such programs to target an even greater variety of issues in a way that is difficult to replicate in real life. This will surely increase the diversity of solutions that BehaVR is able to give.

Homecourt is a personal basketball training app to help individuals capture their moves, stats and progress. Within your home, Homecourt allows you to engage in fun, interactive drills powered by AR to give an immersive live-action experience. It also has actual basketball drills and shot training drills which would require you to head to a basketball court for your workout. Homecourt also partners with the NBA and users are able to train with interactive drills and instruction from NBA and WNBA athletes. There’s also a competition mode where you can challenge friends or even the athletes themselves in interactive challenges.

Homecourt requires minimal set up, you only need your iPhone or iPad and Homecourt will guide you on positioning your device to get the best angle for doing the drills.

1) Simple set up

I love how the instructions are really clear and detailed to teach users how to position their device to get accurate tracking during drills. The set up minimally requires you to position your body within the frame on your device and once you are in the frame, the drills will start.

For basketball drills, the app gives you the flexibility of position your phone on the ground or using a tripod. After positioning your phone, you would have to shoot a freethrow to help the app calibrate before starting the drill.

Homecourt uses AR to greatly the reduce the amount of equipment required for users to train by themselves. For example, a typical basketball agility drill would involve picking up and putting down cones while dribbling from side to side. Homecourt provides an AR display of these cones and detect a pick up or put down while you are doing the drill so all you need is just a basketball.

2) Audio effects and visual cues

While doing the drills, the audio effects and visual cues added to the immersive experience. Whenever I hit a target or hit the wrong target, there will be different audio sounds to indicate whether I got it right or wrong. The visual animations on screen when I hit a target or when time is running out also added on to the experience. Homecourt also allows you to challenge your friend in a drill to see who can get a higher score as depicted in the video below. This positive competition helps to encourage users to work out together and improve their skills together.

There is also a huge variety of workouts and drills – ball handling, shooting, agility, conditioning, training programs and challenges. The ability to track your progress on each drill and even get analytics on your performance, and technique engages users by guiding them to improve and get motivated by their successes.

3) Basketball shot analytics

As a basketball player myself, I found the tracking of my shot on the basketball drills to be really useful especially when I am training on my own. Even if I can count the number of makes vs attempts myself, it is hard to identify the problem with my shot. However, with Homecourt, the app helps me to track my shot accuracy so I can focus on shooting, mark the spots that I shot at during the drill and mark my shot trajectory of all my shots. After I complete the drill, I am able to replay the video recording to identify my weak spots and the best shot angle to get a consistent shot.

4) Improvements

Tracking accuracy can still be improved for 3 point shots. When completing shooting challenges on the app, the app would detect a 3 point shot even when I’m within the 3-pointer line.

On mobile, it is quite difficult to see the cues from afar and this app would perform a lot better on a larger screen (ipad or use hdmi/airplay to project to a TV)

For basketball shooting drills, the experience can be enhanced even more if Homecourt integrates with AR smart glasses which are lightweight and the user can see the AR effects as they are shooting instead of only being able to review them after their workout. This would allow users to adjust and make changes as they shoot since their shot trajectories are already tracked and marked in real time.

Curious Alice is a virtual reality (VR) simulation/game developed for the HTC Viveport. I came across this application while browsing through the store for ideas, as my exposure to mixed reality has never been anything more than a few fleeting videos of VR gameplay on YouTube.

In Curious Alice, the player takes on the perspective of Alice and gets to experience her imaginary wonderland through a few simple challenges. What is engaging to the player is that it captures a true-to-life representation of Alice’s wonderland, and the player gets to feel what it is like to be Alice in those situations via a couple of well done features. The player’s perspective changes in such ways that give them a real sense of shrinking or growing, just like when Alice did in the storybook. The player also gets a sense of actually tumbling down the rabbit hole at the start. The challenges, from answering riddles to playing a game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts, also keeps the player engaged in addition to its visual elements.

What I feel was really well done is how the game manages to integrate real life illustrations from an artist with its graphics, achieved through mapping the 3D objects with textures of the illustrations. This gives the player an even more immersive feel, as if they are really experiencing a storybook setting.

However, the game is not without a downside. From the limited amount of gameplay footage I can found online, it seems to me that the croquet challenge can get rather unintuitive. In the challenge, the player has to throw hedgehogs through tunnels made by the playing cards, but instead of a throwing motion like one would expect, the player has to hold out and release the hedgehog. I believe this counters most people’s expectations of how to throw an object, and can be improved by matching these expectations.

All in all, I think Curious Alice is a very well-done VR experience allowing people to truly experience what it is like to be a storybook character. I believe apart from games and training simulations, this is definitely an area of VR development that the industry should focus on. To create applications that allows avid readers to truly experience fiction from the perspectives of the characters.

Why do I like it?

I really like the concept of utilising non-Euclidean spaces in a practical scenario. Tea for God uses this property in their game such that the player can simply mark out the available space in their room that can be used for gameplay. The game then maps out the possible routes that can be taken such that the player never leaves his/her physical allocated play area.

Why is it engaging?

I find that the game effectively manages to immerse the user in its virtual world and takes them away from the reality that they are just roaming about in a small area in their room. I feel that this might be achieved by simply allowing the user to walk in the game and not just using their hands to interact with the game like most VR games. Furthermore, with a change in the environment as the player explores the game, it gives a sense of adventure.

What features are well done?

This game features using items like shields and guns as well as grabbing objects. However, the main feature well done is the math and algorithm behind the use of impossible spaces with procedural generation to allow players infinite movement within their own place.

What features can be improved and how?

First off, Tea for God is officially still under development so there are still several unresolved issues. From gameplay videos about a year ago, they have issues properly resolving the condition when a player forcefully walks through a wall (blue screen of death will pop-up). I am unsure of how they currently resolve this issue. However, I would probably implement the error handling as (1. Freeze the game, 2. Notify user they are out of bounds and how to navigate back to the last valid position, 3. Only once they are back at the last valid position, will the game unfreeze.)

Speaking of the VR app that I spend most time on, it should be Beat Saber. I spend half an hour almost every day, for both entertaining and fitness. Now I’d like to talk some on this application.

Pros

Immersion

Immersion is the most we want in a VR application. We want imagination becoming real in virtual reality. That’s what Beat Saber gives. We could have a pair of long sabers – which is impossible in real world – to slash numerous coming blocks. It makse virtual world more enjoyable.

Another huge impact for immersion is the locomotion. For most VR games. We have to face the problem of moving. Teleportation or moving directly will bring people either sickness or feeling unreal. Therefore, some games have to make some extra definitions about why you should stand still in the virtual environment(why do I only stand when boxing?). Beat saber has to care none of them. You could enjoy it without any sickness.

Fitness

Fitness is an advantage for VR games. For PC games, you could only sit and play, which is harmful for your back. VR gives another option. You can play game and fit at same time. That is very useful – especially in current pandemic case that you cannot go out too often.

Community

For a console game, it’s quite common that you spend tens of hours playing it, beating final boss, and then never play it again. Because there is no input after the game is released. But community will make some differences. You could see custom songs, customized sabers, fantsic lighting maps and others in Beat Saber community. More people join the community, and more people contribute to the community. That is the possitive feedback of community.

If you play beatsaber, you could have a try on my map https://beatsaver.com/maps/1d688

Cons

It’s not wrong that I use same title.

Fitness

Fitness could be an advantage, and it could also be a disadvantage. It means you cannot play it for a long time – only for fun. If you play harder songs, you will quickly get tired and cannot hold the same level. Then you have to exit and rest.

Beside, that’s why I think locomotion sickness is hard to solve. Fatigue is more than sickness: imagine that you run all the time in a VR PUBG……

Community

As I mentioned, Beat Saber is largely supported by its community. However, I think Beat Saber developers could have more communication with community. For each update, all the mods will be unusable and people have to wait for several days for the new version. Maybe developers could leave some exposed API for community to easily use. What’s more, developers could integrate some wonderful mods into orignal game, and that is the story for Counter Strike.