Inside VR Design: The Clever Weapons, Locomotion, & Open-world of ‘Stormland’

Original article: Inside VR Design: The Clever Weapons, Locomotion, & Open-world of ‘Stormland’

TL;DR

“Stormland” is a VR action-adventure game that introduces unique features like ripping guns for reloading and crafting, as well as employing a multi-modal locomotion system for fluid movement. The game’s open-world design, utilizing islands and cloud gliding, ensures engaging exploration without tedious walking. Clever comfort tricks like minimizing vection make high-speed movements comfortable, demonstrating a thoughtful balance between immersion and player ease.

Bullet points

  1. 🔫 Unique Weapon Reloading and Handling: Stormland’s weapon system is ingeniously designed to prioritize fun and fluidity over realism. Reloading involves ripping the gun apart, which is both entertaining and easy to perform, even under pressure. The mechanic serves a dual purpose by also providing crafting materials. Additionally, the game adds convenience features like allowing dropped guns to float temporarily, avoiding any break in gameplay due to accidental drops, making the game feel more engaging and accessible.
  2. 🛠️ Streamlined Inventory Management: Stormland implements unique solutions to ensure smooth and efficient inventory management. Guns and other items can float momentarily, which acts as a sort of third hand for the player while managing inventory. This design choice maintains the immersive experience while also making it easy for players to shuffle and interact with their inventory without unnecessary hindrance.
  3. 🏃 Multi-modal Locomotion System: The game combines different movement modes - thumbstick movement, climbing, and gliding - to enhance the player’s sense of freedom and control. The design is meant to provide a seamless experience, such as the innovative wall grabbing system that requires less precision, thus making climbing more fluid and fun. These choices support Stormland’s aim of providing a varied and enjoyable locomotion experience.
  4. ✈️ Comfortable High-Speed Gliding: Stormland’s gliding system offers an exhilarating way to travel across the game world without causing dizziness. Key design considerations like minimal visual cues in motion (vection) and controlling speed and direction through physical movement with arms make it comfortable. The game’s visual field design and incorporation of the player’s body movements in controlling gliding create a thrilling yet comfortable traveling experience.
  5. 🌍 Innovative Open-World Design: Stormland crafts an open-world experience that feels expansive without being tedious. By using islands as points of interest and providing fast and exciting ways to traverse between them, the game creates a sense of large-scale exploration without demanding unnecessary time investment. Upgrades like the ability to create cloud ramps add to the fun, letting the player explore and enjoy the open world seamlessly.
  6. 🌳 Clever Techniques for VR Comfort: In addition to the gliding mechanics, Stormland employs other techniques to ensure comfort during gameplay. One method is controlling vection by limiting fast-moving imagery, such as gliding only on clouds, a low contrast texture, to reduce the sense of motion. The developers’ intentional choices in designing locomotion, from speed to physical involvement, showcase a deep understanding of VR mechanics and human perception to create a comfortable and immersive experience.

Keywords

  • Stormland: The title of an open-world action-adventure VR game by Insomniac Games. It features innovative mechanics related to weapons, locomotion, and world design.
  • Revive: A software that allows playing Oculus-exclusive games on other VR headsets, such as those compatible with SteamVR.
  • Locomotion: Refers to the methods of movement within the VR environment. In Stormland, locomotion includes thumbstick movement, climbing, and gliding, allowing for horizontal and vertical travel.
  • Vection: A complex term referring to the sense of motion a person experiences based on what is seen visually. In VR, this can lead to dizziness if what is seen doesn’t align with what the body senses. Stormland minimizes vection to make fast movement comfortable.
  • Multi-modal: Referring to the use of multiple methods or modes. In the context of Stormland, it refers to the combination of different types of locomotion (thumbstick movement, climbing, gliding) to create a fluid movement experience.
  • Holster: A place where a virtual weapon is kept in the game. Players pull guns out of their holsters to use them, and in Stormland, dropped guns return to the holster automatically after a few seconds.
  • Traversal: Refers to the act of moving or traveling across an area. In Stormland, this includes methods like gliding on clouds and creating ramps, facilitating quick and engaging movement through the game world.
  • Crafting materials: Items collected within a game that can be used to create or upgrade weapons and abilities. In Stormland, ripping guns apart provides both ammo and these materials.