Keith "kTwitch" Thomas

I’m fascinated by virtual reality. Of course, that encompasses a lot of things, even some of which exist today (such as videogames). However, I mean moreso the type that is envisioned in the future, where we will be ‘wired’ in to a virtual world and all of the sensory information we receive will be virtual. At this point, imagination would cease to be that which can only be portrayed through mediums. We could live and breath any sort of world imaginable.

Anyways, we’re not quite there yet. At the moment, one of the closest things is augmented reality (AR). Now, I often see this simply as a stepping stone to virtual reality, but that’s not quite true. You can also view it as the meeting grounds between virtual and “real”. It is related to mediated reality, which is essentially a view of the real world which is modified by a virtual interface.

Here’s some really neat projects that encompass AR:

Google - Project Glass

One of the coolest things I’ve seen in awhile, and since it’s being backed by a company as monstrous as Google, it should definitely turn out to be a success.

Julian Oliver - levelHead

This is more along the lines of stuff I’d like to do, as it revolves around a game. I think the neatest thing about this project is that it takes real life objects (the cubes) and makes it seem that there’s a world different within them.

Marco Tempest - Virtual Magician

Now, this guy doesn’t bring anything practical to the table, or really anything all that interactive for a general person, but it still is quite interesting.

And if you’re a developer like me, here’s a couple SDK’s I’ve come across:

Qualcomm - Vuforia AR SDK

I’m trying out this one right now, mainly because it has a unity integration, and sounds pretty easy to get up-and-running. Also, you can use it for Android and iOS development.

ARToolKit

Now, I’ve heard a lot about this SDK in developer communities, so it must be quite good, but I can’t even get it compiled. That’s probably partially because it’s open-source (which is sweet) and I can never figure out how to install and configure those projects.

I’d love to have some AR projects to show in the future, so hopefully I can get things together and working. 

Cheers.

Multiplayer will be the theme of this post (if only to make me want to write it). Just about every game designer has had a dream of making the world’s grandest MMO, one in which everything would be possible. A true virtual reality. This is much the same as how a musician wants to start the world’s greatest band, or a young college kid wants to start the world’s greatest business. Impossible, no, but neither is it by any means likely.

So, since I’m (highly) unlikely to ever see these to fruition myself, I’ll write them down! Multiplayer games that I would love to see done.

1) Pokemon MMO

Since I’m dabbling in theoretical territory, I’ll go full out on what I would like to see. The game would mirror the gameboy games in way of starter pokemon, bicycle to get around, catching pokemon, fighting gym leaders, elite four, and a few other things. However, it would be in a completely 3D environment, and gone would be the days of turn-based battle. The combat would ideally be more like WoW, with cooldowns, and each pokemon’s move would be fully animated to show it’s magnificence. 

The PVP alone in this game would be amazing. Endless different types of match-ups (game design wise this would be horrible to balance), and it wouldn’t just have to be in arenas. World PVP could see you encountering another trainer on a field and sending out all of your pokemon to autobattle it out. I’m crossing my fingers that Nintendo one day sees how great this would be.

2) New Lands

A world in which the landscape is randomly generated so far that it would take years to discover the end of it. Land could be claimed by adventurers, and kings could rule the lands. Ideally, it would mirror exactly what happened with human civilization, though I’m not sure anybody would want to play a character that’s a peasant haha. One solution to that though is that the longer you play, the more gold you naturally accumulate, so the longest-playing players would be the lords and kings, while the newbies would have to be in the low-caste for awhile. 

The main appeal would be that there’s a world out there undiscovered, and if you want you can go discover somewhere and make a town there.

3) Teacher’s World

Leveling in this game wouldn’t be based upon killing monsters, but instead upon solving problems and answering questions or riddles. To avoid a fully educational experience, there would certainly be minigames you must beat to get experience, but I think it’d be neat if whoever completed certain challenges were then able to become ‘teachers’ and teach those who haven’t completed it for some extra experience. Or even swap knowledge with somebody who hasn’t completed it but has completed something you haven’t.

I picture this more as a living, breathing virtual reality that you could literally live in productively, because you would be learning as you play, instead of just messing around. The max level could see you develop into a sage haha. 

Play Here ! Okay, perhaps I should insert a warning before I send you off to play this game haha. It was made about four months ago, for a local IGDA game jam in Chicago. The jam lasted about 48 hours, and this is the result of it (plus about a week of slight touches - title screen, loading screen, etc.). Thus, it’s short, bug-ridden and not all that fun in my opinion. But for having such a short period of time, I don’t think we did half bad. (It was me and my friend Erik as the artist)

 What Went Right

1. Completion

We’re glad that we at least completed the game, however filled with bugs it may be. Just the act of completion is a good feeling. 

2. Art

The game doesn’t look all that bad. Definitely not my artist’s best work, but it’s consistent art, which is important. You could have the best art in the world, and if it doesn’t mesh together well, it will look awful.

                                      I’ve seen worse title screens.

What Went Wrong

1. Design

The way I envisioned the game before we started on it was completely and utterly different from what we ended up with. That’s not always a bad thing, a game usually evolves while you develop it, but in this case I feel like it was way worse than it could have been. The concept of shooting enemies that could potentially come back and kill you, rewarding those who have good aim, was very unique and fresh. However, the execution didn’t complement the gameplay mechanic, and the mechanic wasn’t even done well in itself.

              If the monster you shoot hits the ground, it turns into an enemy.

2. Bugs

I mostly chalk this up to drunk coding. During the jam, I was staying at a buddies’ place at UIC and got a bit drunk the night before we were to show the game. This ruined my logic naturally, and a lot of bugs seeped in that later on I wasn’t even able to flesh out. Unfortunately, this later ruined my desire to even want to work on the game, so we released it without being fully bug-free.

Statistics/Overview

We tried for a sponsorship but didn’t get any bids, but we sort of expected that. Thus, we released it with mochiads about a week or two ago, and are simply going to hope for a bit of pocket change.

In a week there’s been 6,000 hits, and we’ve only made $1.50. Rolling in the dough! 

I did learn a thing or two from this project (not to code while wasted), and I am looking forward to trying another game jam in the future.

Thanks for reading! Farewell.

I’d like to start this mini-series more for myself, in hopes that it’ll keep my creative juices flowing while working through my current projects and schoolwork. Every week I’ll try to post three interesting game ideas, whether on a large scope or small scope, whether befitting a flash game or a future virtual reality game.

These are simply the best of the ideas I’ve had for projects in the past few months.

1) Game in a Game

Yes, it reeks of an inception joke, but it’s an idea that I still wish to work on eventually. The concept is that you’ve fallen asleep (though the player won’t know at first) and you’re in an RPG game where the monsters are icons of other popular games like tetris or bejewelled. To defeat an enemy, you must be sucked into their game and then beat it, earning yourself experience like any other RPG.

2) After Life

Inspired from a dream I had, the game opens with your death. From there, you float off into a strange sort of lobby. The receptionist asks “Is this your first death?” and explains to you that this is truly reality and that you were simply in an “Earth Simulation”. You find that there are many other worlds that you can jump into for that world’s lifetime (nothing compared to a real lifetime) and compete with others to see who can get the most resources. There’s so much to explore with this.

3) Mad Chemist

A simple platformer, placing you in control of a chemist who’s creations (monsters) have broken free with help from his latest creation and are on the verge of breaking out of the lab. You must travel down through your lab destroying any monsters that you happen upon. The combat would be you throwing potions you’ve mixed up at the monsters, each with a different special effect. Then, at the in-between level shop you could buy new potions and mix it with any current ones to effectively upgrade each of your attacks.