Designing Games for Presence in Consumer Virtual Reality

With virtual reality technologies entering the consumer market this year, it is the task of those producing content for the virtual reality platform to ensure that users have an experience that lives up to expectations. Virtual reality comes with its own strengths and weaknesses, and these must be taken into account when designing applications to produce the best possible experience for interaction. This paper employs a qualitative case study to examine participants in sessions with a virtual reality game prototype utilizing the Oculus Rift. The game prototype was designed to investigate problem areas of virtual reality. Data was then analyzed through thematic analysis, and a preliminary set of game design heuristics specific to virtual reality were created. These heuristics are written so that virtual reality game designers can easily apply them.

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