Tag Archives: Oculus Rift

Scottish Game Jam Update #2 (6 Hours late)

US

So I’ve spent most of the morning (7-2) working on getting the camera into the driver’s seat in UDK. After a steep learning curve where I learned that Unreal Code has a “Last one, Final say” policy I learned that instead of changing it at the source, I had to change it at the last destination. Thanks to Craig for his help with that.

I’ve had fours hours sleep as my team were nice enough to let me crash after staying up all night working on modelling the first level only to have it crash on me and lose an hours work.
Programs (Unreal Development Kit and its coding language)

Fraser has modeled Player2’s tommy gun and will probably upload pictures later on tonight on his blog (Blogs and Channels).
Programs (3DS Max)

Sean has made some kickass music that should really help the game stand out from the crowd which you’ll be able to hear later on tonight on his Youtube Channel (Blogs and Channels).
Programs (Guitar Pro 6 for Composition, Garage Band for Arrangement)
Equipment (Yamaha Bass, Westfield Stratocaster, Casio Keyboard)

And we also got our female voice actress back to record some dialogue.

Craig has been working on helping me with the Camera code and writing up the dialogue between the two characters. Once we’ve got that finalised its onto recording!
Programs (Open Office)

The game is starting to shape up and once we implement the jeep model and put constraints on the Oculus Rift Head Tracking, the driver’s part of the controls will be finished and its onto making the rail shooter player.

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The Jam

The Game Jam has been going strong with lots of great looking games from a lot of teams. Most games are still in the early stages so it is difficult to really discern much.
One game I have played is a card game called “Good News!” where you play as an information enhancer in Soviet Russia. The concept of the game is that you are given pre-approved corrections to fix news articles in time for their printing. If you like Cards Against Humanity, Papers Please or Soviet Era Propaganda you’ll love Good News.

There is to be a Nidhogg tournament soon with a Helghast helmet or Total War Rome 2 as the prize. Wish me luck.

I will endeavor to get a hands on experience with more games as the day progresses.

Sorry for the delay of this update.

Festive Absence and New Years Resolutions

So with the festive period over and my schedule back to being empty, its time for me to update you all on what I’ve been up to and what I’ve got planned. Lucky you.

Over the festive period I was very busy celebrating Yule and Christmas as only my girlfriend and I celebrate the former in our circles. So with those and New Years, I’ve been busy, especially so with the Oculus Rift as everyone who has visited has either wanted shown or forced to try it. This means that I’ve got a large group of very different people to give me their opinions on both it and the three games I posted in my previous post about the Oculus Rift.

They all liked it, even some people with motion sickness were able to put up with it. This has made me very hopeful about the future of the Oculus Rift as I was nervous that I had bought into something that had none. With my fears found to be nothing more than my own tight pocket crossed with a motion sickness that is getting less and less with each session, I’ve decided to start working on developing with the Oculus Rift in mind.

Oculus Rift Game

With help from my friend Fraser Gillespie (www.frasernat20.blogspot.co.uk) to create an interactive environment inspired by Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro. The environment will be, hopefully, similarly styled to the anime. We are aiming to create something that player’s can get immersed and lost in.
More on that later though, once we’ve worked out exactly what we need and both get back on track.

Those Who Play

After the last bout of playtesting we found out that a d10 is just not good enough, unfortunately we haven’t had another playtest since then and I’ve just managed to buy enough dice for a decent dice pool test. Hopefully one of these systems works out well and I can continue with setting books unhindered, but for now, it lays dormant until I can rope some playtesters in.

New Years Resolution

So with the new year here I’ve decided to kick myself into gear even harder than before and try and finish my existing projects before starting anything new.

Those Who Play – Pen and Paper RPG System
Atheist God – Novel
Big Badass Barbarians – Board Game
Forest For Oculus – Video Game

Happy New Year!

Oculus Rift

So today I had another encounter with the amazing service that is UPS as my Oculus Rift arrived, with a massive fucking crack on the case. To put this in perspective, the case is encased inside a larger cardboard box with protection to stop it from moving. The crack is long enough and deep enough to show that it was fucking thrown from the van.

Thankfully the Oculus Rift was undamaged so I don’t have to bother about sending it back. Something I am incredibly grateful for as the Oculus Rift is incredible! After half an hour of setting it up (Didn’t realise I have USB 2.0 and the cable was 3.0) I downloaded some titles from the Rift Enabled website and we set about testing everything we could get our hands on.

Guillotine simulator, rollercoasters, diving, bungee jumping, dungeon, forest and home exploration. Flight sims and even a relaxing river ride where you touch flowers to make them explode into a wide spectrum of colours. The amount of games made with support for the headset is both more than I expected and less than I would have desired but what kind of developer would I be if I let that dishearten me?! This just gives me more room to work!

So, needless to say, I have a fair few ideas for the Oculus Rift that I will detail when I get more familiar with Unity and 3DS Max.

For just now though, I’d like to go over some of the games we tested and some that I look forward to playing once I configure them properly.

Delta Draconis – A flight/exploration game in which you pilot a small spacecraft along the surface of an alien world where meteors and lightning strike often and with great effect. A beautiful soundtrack and simplistic yet stunning visuals make this a must own for any Oculus Rift owner.
http://www.riftenabled.com/admin/app/246

EpicDragon VR – Another flight game, this one in a fantasy setting where you play as the chosen rider who must collect the sacred eggs before the sun sets and the lord’s of darkness take over the world forever. A great title with great controls and an awesome soundtrack. Does not have collision detection but it is in Alpha so this may change.
http://www.riftenabled.com/admin/app/411

Dreadhalls – A first person dungeon exploration game that will make you cry. This game is beautiful for its simplicity. You are in a dungeon, horrible things are in dungeon. Try to escape. On a normal computer monitor this would seem old school at best, on the Oculus Rift this is so immersive you can’t help but panic.
http://www.riftenabled.com/admin/app/408

For more on Dreadhalls, here are two videos of my mum playing it and freaking out spectacularly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NdB1qHAvFA&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-j8A3WLHjU&feature=youtu.be

Skip to the last thirty seconds for the freakouts or watch the whole thing to hear some hilarious monologuing by a first time gamer!

I’ll be posting more about the Oculus Rift in the days to come as I get more to grips with the technology and find cool demos to show off.

See you all soon.