October 23, 2024
How we are combating motion sickness in DIG VR.
I (Social media lady for a company that is currently making a lot of VR games) suffer with horrific motion sickness in first person and VR games. I never got to play so many awesome games because doing so would lead to headaches, nausea, and praying to the porcelain throne!
Thankfully the team here at JAW are awesome and are determined to make our games as accessible as possible to everyone! Here’s how they have made DIG VR not only an awesome game, but an awesome game that most people, regardless of the strengths of their stomachs, can play.
The first thing that helped massively was not even something the team did deliberately. Just the act of controlling a vehicle makes a world of difference in VR. There is not much disconnect between sitting in a chair and sitting in the driving seat of a digger! It is not a perfect one-to-one, however, and there are plenty of things you can do that will bring that disconnect back. Luckily, we have options.
Staying with movement, when in the Hub you move around on foot, which is probably the most motion sickness inducing part of the game, unfortunately. Thankfully we have the choice between free movement and teleporting, as well as snap turn or free turn. Any way you want to move through the hub, we have you covered!
The team really studied up on what causes motion sickness and, more importantly, how to mitigate it! One of our QA testers swears by the turning vignette, which darkens the edges of your screen when you turn. Others prefer the turning dot which puts a simple static dot in your view when you turn. The speed at which you turn can also be a factor; so that is fully adjustable as well!
If none of these work for you, fear not. Another thing we discovered was that having a constant static object in your view as you play can help. We always wanted to have wearable hard hats in game anyway, so why not make them useful? If you put on any of the hardhats found throughout the hub, you can see the brim at the top of your screen.
Overall, we are pretty confident that DIG VR is an experience that can be enjoyed by all!
DIG VR:
Wishlist: https://Wired.gg/DigVR
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