Out of the experiences that involved a VR headset at VR Park, I tried out the roller coaster, the dune surfing ride, a couple of the sports games, the maze game, and the four player zombie shooting game. The hierarchy I would assign each of these games in terms of level of immersion (number 1 being the highest level) would be:
- Maze game
- Four player zombie shooting game
- Sports games
- Roller coaster
- Dune surfing ride
Firstly, it is important to note the difference between immersion and presence, because the order would be very different if we were talking about presence. To me, immersion is about how involved the player feels within the experience, in addition to presence. Presence is about building up a cohesive environment, whereas immersion is about how engaged you are within that environment. The experiences that felt the most immersive were the ones in which the user had some sort of mission within the experience. This explains the first three items on my list: the maze game, the zombie shooting game, and the sports games all gave the player some sort of mission or task, whereas with the roller coaster and dune surfing ride, the player was a passive observer.
As for what makes the maze game the most immersive experience, it is about the construction of the physical space. There were physical walls built that corresponded with walls within the game – being able to actually touch these walls within the game made the experience more immersive.
Next on the list is the four player zombie shooting game – the fact that you could share this experience with other users and the fact that the controller shaped like a gun did a lot for the immersion aspect of the game. However, I would still consider the maze game to be more immersive perhaps because you were able to move around more freely. There is something about the ability to walk around a space, even if it is a constrained maze with a set narrative or path, that makes the experience more “real.” There are corners to duck behind to add to the combat experience, whereas in the zombie shooting game your only mode of defense was shooting a gun.
In terms of the use of light and sound, I think all of these experiences made good use of these tools, especially the zombie shooting game. They generally served to set the mood of the experience, such as zombie sound effects and dark lighting for the scary setting. What was especially compelling was that there were microphones for each of the headsets, allowing the players to talk to one another. However, this had both positive and negative effects on the level of immersion of the experience. It was positive because you got to share the experience with other people, and the sounds of other players shouting into the microphones added to a combat-like experience. However, there was an adverse effect at one point. When the lady in the game was giving instructions, we all pointed the gun and shot to kind of see if anything would happen, which led to some discussion in the headsets, which in turn covered up the audio of what the lady was actually saying. As a result, some of game’s narrative was lost.