Creating a Virtual Reality Game

Introduction

When people think of play, many most likely revert back to their childhood and picture their innocent games of make-believe and pretend. According to Brian Sutton-Smith, author of The Ambiguity of Play, play “glorifies freedom, originality, genius, the arts, and the innocent and uncorrupted character of the childhood vision” (Sutton-Smith, vii). He claims that play is ambiguous, and can deal with many different ideas and characters such as animals, children, adults, fate, power, identity, imagination, phantasmagoria, the self, frivolity, as well as many other outside factors (Sutton-Smith, v). However, I’d like to focus on Sutton-Smith’s definition above that relates play to glorifying freedom and innocence and play as an element of imagination and make believe because this is my most enjoyable form of play.

Inspiration

The inspiration for my project is the movie, “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy” because it is my favorite fantasy movie. When watching these movies, a person can get lost in the colorful worlds, detailed characters and incredible adventures that create the magic of the film. This is the old technology I would like to stem from. Watching movies is in itself is an exciting and imaginative form of play. You get emotionally attached to the characters and are sad when the movie ends. But most of the time you are sitting in a theater or a room and just watching the film. I want to take this idea a step further. I want to allow people to step inside the movies they watch. So instead of being a passive receiver of the movie, I want a person to be able to interact with the film and its characters. To achieve this heightened sense of play, I have developed the Virtual Realm.

Users/Settings/Social Elements

The player must be over 18 years of age for equipment liability reasons and this type of game can appeal to all different types of people: male/female, younger/older, lower/upper class etc. The Virtual Realm can be compared to places like virtual reality arcades and interactive shows like Medieval Times. The Virtual Realm can be a solitary experience or people may choose to interact as a group. They can enter into the same chamber (fits 3 people max, depending on size of chamber) or they can all enter different chambers and interact in the scene together by being different characters.

The Making of the Virtual Realm

The Virtual Realm is a new virtually reality based playground where a person can go if they wish to interact with their favorite movies.