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Half Life Alyx was an interesting example of this. I've played lots of games, so of course I am good at reading the "language" of games: when I can interact wi

Half Life Alyx was an interesting example of this. I've played lots of games, so of course I am good at reading the "language" of games: when I can interact with something, when a door is openable vs a prop, when an NPC is important vs background character, etc. But in VR, all my experience was thrown out the window. When there's a door right there, right in front of you, 100% full sized and in high detail - your instinct screams "you can open this." Valve painted anything you can interact with bright, vibrant red. But even the bright red wasn't always enough to distinguish between the life-sized 3D garbage can that you can open up, and the one that is simply a prop that is glued to the ground and totally inert. I think there will be a strange dance between game designers and gamers when it comes to VR. Everything old is new again, and even veterans players of 2D games will need to learn the new language as it is being written.

jayd16 5y ago
We're certainly still in the early days of reinventing UI primitives here. AR is another example where UX in an unsolved problem.
hn8788 5y ago
That's where the devs have to decide whether they're willing to sacrifice some realness for the sake of gameplay. The game director for Doom Eternal has been streaming the game and providing commentary on it, and he talked about how for this game, everything took a backseat to gameplay, even if it doesn't look realistic. For example, if there's a surface the player can break, it glows neon green, but if there's a surface that can only be broken by something in the environment, it glows a dingy yellow color.
animal531 5y ago
Yeah it throws you for a loop. I was initially playing with the teleport, but then changed to walking at the starting area where you circumnavigate the U shaped rooftop; after which you need to pull open a window/slider. Because I had just switched movement it threw me and I took extra long to find where to go next, even though it was extremely linear.

jayd16 5y ago

We're certainly still in the early days of reinventing UI primitives here. AR is another example where UX in an unsolved problem.

hn8788 5y ago

That's where the devs have to decide whether they're willing to sacrifice some realness for the sake of gameplay. The game director for Doom Eternal has been streaming the game and providing commentary on it, and he talked about how for this game, everything took a backseat to gameplay, even if it doesn't look realistic. For example, if there's a surface the player can break, it glows neon green, but if there's a surface that can only be broken by something in the environment, it glows a dingy yellow color.

animal531 5y ago

Yeah it throws you for a loop. I was initially playing with the teleport, but then changed to walking at the starting area where you circumnavigate the U shaped rooftop; after which you need to pull open a window/slider. Because I had just switched movement it threw me and I took extra long to find where to go next, even though it was extremely linear.