Looks Like Its Back to Dinosour Island for Me

Back To Dinosaur Island 2 - Gameplay and Locomotion Scheme

Link to original article: http://peterthor.se/2016/04/movement-in-virtual-reality-part-two/
Full article below

In this second part of the "Movement In Virtual Reality" series I will write about my experience after playing the game Back To Dinosaur Island 2 by Crytek.

I will analyse how I played the game and how my senses played with it. I will reflect on what made me think it was a good or bad experience. I will hopefully not spoil the fun for you by going into technical pros and cons.

 At the end I will give the game a rating based on the overall experience and a category that I call "Location scheme" that combined visual, haptic and audio queues into an umbrella category.

Back To Dinosaur Island 2

Played on hardware:

• OS: Windows 10
• CPU: Intel Core i7 950
• GFX: GTX 970
• Visual: Oculus Rift DK2
• Audio: Sennheiser HD 595 Stereo Headset

About the game

Back to Dinosaur Island 2 is a game where you move up along the side of a mountain using a handheld handle consisting of two push buttons. The handle is fitted on a mechanism that is connected to some kind of rope that has been fixed to the mountain side. The starting point of the experience is several hundred meters up the mountain side. The whole path leading up the the top of the mountain consists of about ten sections, each with a new handle that you have to grab onto to be able to continue climbing. I'd say that the total climb is something around 150 meters.

You move along the path by pressing the left and right trigger buttons on your XBox 360 controller. When you release one of the buttons the mechanism comes to a halt, if you release both buttons you fall down and die.

Link to: Trailer (youtube)

How I played the game

I first played the game three times while being seated in a swivel chair. This was immediately followed by a fourth round where I was standing up. During the gameplay I was able to look at the details of the mountain side and the surroundings with little effort, continously rotating the swivel chair back and forth. When I stopped the mechanism and was looking around I specifically remember that I never did a full 360 revolution when using the swivel chair - I always returned to the center before looking to the opposite side. For me I think this might be due to the fact that when I release one button (to stop the mechanism) I mentally "believe" that one of my hand is still holding the handle while the other is hanging free. Thus I returned to the center position before I looked to the opposite side. I cannot remember if I did a 360 revolution while standing but I doubt it.

For me, the most comfortable way of playing whilst hanging in the handle and moving up was the seated experience. When standing up I experienced a slight trouble with the balance, the probable cause was that when I was looking at the wall whilst climbing and physically leaning/walking toward the wall my balance organ only detected the forward and backward movement. Thus I started wobbing a bit. The notion of not having an avatar body while up standing and looking down was not that weird - the weirdest part for me was actually feeling that I was standing on the appartment floor while I was hanging in the handle in the experience.

The gameplay - in short

I don't want to spoil the experience if you have not played the game yet but there are places along the climb with action related to the title of the experience. The hardest part for me was actually to hear where things came from. Seeing was not a problem but hearing where things came from when there was much going on was a bit difficult.
I believe that the game would benefit greatly from binaural audio allowing the player to locate the sound more easily.

The triggers on the XBox controller played very well with the handle mechanism. I remember that I had to relax my hands a bit at times since they got a bit exhausted from having to press constantly while climbing. Just as one would expect a real mountain climb to be like :)

What makes the locomotion work / not work for me?

When you press both buttons on the controller the movement first starts visually with the handle moving upwards. This is accompanied by sound telling you there is a buildup in tension in the rope. The movement starts as an acceleration which quite rapidly transitions to a constant velocity. The velocity is not too fast meaning that there is not too much optical flow in the scene play tricks with your vestibular system. Personally I felt best when I was not watching directly onto the side of the mountain but watching along the path of the rope or on the scenery.

Concluding remarks

I got a slightly upset stomach while playing the game while standing up. When I once lost the grip and fell down it was an unpleasant activity knowing that I was about to die - as it would be in real life :) The design of the actual movement pattern worked well with a slight acceleration that rapidly transitioned to a constant velocity. The buttons of the physical handcontroller paired nicely with the handle in the experience.

The action sequences along the path were visually good but I miss better positional audio.

As often written elsewhere the resolution of the current commercially available headsets is too low to really show the greatness of vast open scenes. Close quarters is best and I remember studying some of the weird plants in the cracks of the mountain wall intensly.

Rating

• Overall experience: 3.5 / 5
• "Locomotion scheme (*)": 4 / 5

* I combine visual, haptic and audio queues to form the Locomotion scheme" category.

Looks Like Its Back to Dinosour Island for Me

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/movement-vr-part-2-back-dinosaur-island-peter-thor

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