Beat Saber is a VR rhythm game where you use handsets as sabers to slash boxes representing musical beats. It is a novel way to play a rhythm game, combining the dynamism of dance dance revolution and the thrill of traditional rhythm games like cytus/osu into a futuristic VR world. You can play it versus friends or random opponents remotely or you can strive to break your personal records. There are multitudes of popular genres and volumes of music to play such as EDM, Pop, Rock, K-pop, J-pop.

One reason Beat Saber is engaging is that the gameplay is satisfying and immersive. Good songs definitely help in engaging the players and having to move the sabers to the beat involves a large part of the body, immersing the player in the rhythm. As the hit boxes fly towards the player, it captures all the attention and senses of the player, leaving the player in a world of its own.

Another reason is that the songs are kept up to date by open source creators who map new songs in addition to the songs released on Beat Saber. Being able to play songs that are recent keeps the gameplay fresh, especially for people who have their favorite artists in it.

The graphics and design of the user interface and game objects are extremely well-polished, providing a high quality feel and pleasant user experience. The act of slicing the hit boxes with the saber is highly satisfying as there is responsive visual and audio feedback. Its futuristic, Blade Runner-ish neon theme helps to avoid the pain of animating realistic elements that can appear out of place, impractical or unbelievable in a modern, realistic game world. It feels premium and with the price you pay for the game, inclusive of all the songs available online, it is a great buy.

On the other hand, a feature that needs to improve is recovery from errors. Sometimes the headset might disconnect or have a faulty connection which leads to glitching avatars and the game might continue running. A good UX feature to add is pausing the game and informing the user to perform some troubleshooting. This can prevent undesirable experiences with losing game progress.

🙂

VR chat:

VR chat is currently one of the most well-known instances of Virtual Reality currently being used in the present day. Initially touted as a simple video game back in 2017, one could argue that now, it could be something like a prototype Metaverse that Facebook/Meta has been promoting in recent months.  While I personally have not used it, having observed it being used throughout the past few years as a replacement for reality itself due to the ongoing pandemic, I do believe several of its features are quite praiseworthy.

Features:

User generated models and content:

In VR chat, one is able to supply their own user generated models or content for use in VR chat.  So long as it abides by VR chat’s guidelines, the content should be safe for work for everyone to view or peruse.  When it comes to day-to-day infractions, its up to users present to lodge reports.  With such user-generated content, users can freely express themselves in any way, shape or form, unlimited in style or otherwise.

Barrier of entry:

In terms of accessing and using VR chat, there are many ways of accessing the program, with or without the use of an actual VR headset, of course losing some functions such as certain limb movement as trade-offs.  You are generally free to use a variety of different headsets, such as the HTC Vive, or none if you are unable to acquire one.  This generally makes it accessible to most people, especially since the base program is free.

Improvements:

Currently, it is still very much possible to crash and kick people off of VRchat due to access to one’s IP address and presence as seen in this video (the dark side of vrchat).  Even if you conceal your IP address via 3^rd party services, it is still possible to crash the world you are in, kicking you out.  Sine this happens mainly in public spaces, perhaps there is a way to obscure the list of people in the world via the API, or at least only allow certain access?

Aside from that, there could be other improvements like overall graphics, but that would probably require overhauling the system in a different way.

Beat Saber:

Another one I would like to mention would be Beat Saber, which is a VR rhythm game where players basically play to the rhythm of the song.

Users simply have to slice the oncoming block with the saber of the matching colour, while following the rhythm.  While I will not go too in depth unlike the above example, I would like to make note of the free rein given to its users in being able to use and design their own avatars and maps/tracks to play with.  Additionally its simplistic design makes it easy to pick up and play.

Currently to play this game, you require the use of a VR headset and motion controls, which is not exactly the cheapest to acquire all the time.  Perhaps going forward, as technology advances, we will be able to more easily acquire cheaper controllers to use.  Or be this guy.

A popular VR game that I really like is POPULATION: ONE. POPULATION: ONE is a squad-based virtual reality (VR) Battle Royal game. Players team up as a squad and try to take down other teams using weapons and items found in the virtual world. At the same time, the play area for the game will progressively decrease, encouraging players to battle it out while killing players who are outside of the play area. The following screenshot shows the gameplay and its layout from the lens of the player.

There are a few reasons why this game is popular among gamers:

1. This open-world survival game allows for players to explore freely and interact with the virtual game items however they wish, catering to the different playstyles people might have. It essentially gives players the ability and power to do things that they want, making the game flow less restrictive and less predictable. This different experience entices players to continue playing and effectively prevents a looping cycle of repetitive gameplay.
   
2. Compared to other mobile or PlayStation games, players are no longer staring at a screen and pressing buttons to shoot your gun. Rather, players themselves are physically doing the actions of aiming or firing their guns, as well as reloading their guns. This elemental engages more than just the eyes and ears of the players but include physical movement too. Motions such as climbing and flying would provide an entirely new experience for players as they are unable to experience this on handheld Battle Royal games. These interactions and experiences cannot be easily captured without the use of VR.
   
   POV of player while climbing
   
   
   POV of player while flying
   
3. Another interesting feature supported by POPULATION:ONE is its Vertical Combat System (VCS). This VCS offers vertical mobility and freedom for users to fly and glide as they wish. Climbing physically is vastly different from using a touchpad to maneuver their character. The VR-headset allows players to climb and look over their shoulders to fire at enemies. Such motion and action are generally not possible in the handheld version of Battle Royal games.
   
   
4. Lastly, this game allows for crossplay using with different VR headsets. As more VR headsets enter the market, crossplay support ensures that players can use a VR most suited to their style. POPULATION:ONE currently supports Oculus Quest and Rift Platforms, HTC Vive, Windows MR, and Valve Index.

However, despite its popularity, there are also some features that need to be improved in POPULATION:ONE:

1. The art style and graphics of the game needs to be improved. Most of the buildings and guns in the game as simply designed which makes some of the gameplay bland. Most of the buildings do not have textures and surfaces to them which makes it unappealing to visual players who enter the VR world. This shortcoming could be one of the reasons why POPULATION:ONE might be losing its player base. Poor design of the characters in the same caused many of the characters to look like each other. This provides little to no customization for players to dress up their characters which is a highly sought-after feature in many games today.
   
   A possible way to improve this is to do a design revamp of all the characters in the game and introduce items such as accessories or different types of clothing so that more customizations can be done to the characters.

References:

• Jagneaux, D. (2021, August 6). Last man standing: How bigbox’s ‘population: One’ successfully dropped Battle Royale into VR. Facebook Technology. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://tech.fb.com/last-man-standing-big-box-population-one-battle-royale-vr/
• One – battle royale in VR. POPULATION. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14, 2022, from http://www.populationonevr.com/

An XR demo for tabletop games

Mixed Reality(XR) has the opportunity to enhance the experience of reality and Unity Labs have set out to grasp that opportunity with their XR demo, Unity Slice: Table. Unity Slice: Table is an XR prototype where users can play tabletop games virtually on a flat surface in the real world. As a fan of tabletop games, I like this demo because it allows players to play these games online from the comforts of everyone’s home while enhancing the whole experience visually and interactively. The demo engages the player by presenting a fully virtual play space without the need for physical items. In the demo video, two men are able to play a game of chess using a small space in their house and interact with the chess board using only their hands. They are also able to change the environment around them to a virtual space and transform into a virtual avatar.

The ability to join a virtual tabletop online and look like you are seated in someone’s physical space is promising as it is a step towards the Metaverse concept, where friends can virtually meet up as though they are meeting physically. Also, the changing virtual environment is an impressive feature as future development could lead to more interactive and realistic space. For example, a fantasy tabletop game could “teleport” people into the fantasy world itself and allow players to interact with this world as it changes and evolves with the game. However, there are some setbacks to the prototype. One example is that the board requires the controllers to set a location for the board. Given more development time, I could see the possibility of setting the board freely on any physical space you can see by solely using your hands.

I am excited to see this XR prototype further improved in the future.