Astaire: A Collaborative Mixed Reality Dance Game for Collocated Players

Despite the growth of Virtual Reality (VR), the design space of collocated social play in VR remains narrow. Here we present Astaire, a collaborative hybrid VR dance game for two players sharing an HTC Vive VR system. The game resulted from a design research process using embodied design methods, and drawing upon concepts in HCI and Play Design, including social affordances, and asymmetric and interdependent play. Here we present insights from a study playtesting Astaire alongside two VR games that inspired ours: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (KTNE), and Audioshield. We examined players' and spectators' enjoyment, and interpersonal relationships, which were self-reported higher for Astaire. Using data from semi-structured interviews, we foreground design elements that impacted our participants' play experience, grouped under the themes of balance of players' roles, the physicality afforded by the game, and the social experience enabled. Our work contributes to opening the design space of hybrid collocated VR--through our game, we surface inspirational design concepts in HCI, and share design knowledge gained during our design process.