| Abstract | This thesis describes my explorations and investigative reflections on Rollenwahrnehmung (a newly coined phrase meaning role perception/fulfillment), Perspective and Space through Virtual Reality (VR) game interfaces. Throughout this narrative, a number of important topics, relating to my thesis, will be addressed, like the creation of new experiences in the context of VR, the extension and new development of various interaction paradigms, various User Experience aspects and user guidance in a sophisticated new medium.
My research, placed in the field of design practice, focuses on the creation of digital gaming artifacts, while extrapolating insights and guidelines concerning VR interfaces. Both closely intertwined strands will be discussed in the narrative context of investigating the user’s Rollenwahrnehmung, Perspective and Space.
The thesis describes practice-based research derived from a portfolio of specifically developed interactive artifacts, following the methodological approach of Constructive Design Research (CDR). These include the games Nicely Dicely, LizzE – And the Light of Dreams and Gooze. They were used for user testing sessions during various Lab experiments and Showroom presentations (components of the CDR approach), while continually being refined throughout an iterative process.
Nicely Dicely is an abstract game based on physics. In Local Multiplayer, up to four players are able to compete or collaborate. It is not a VR game per se, but features both, Monoscopic and 3D Stereoscopic Vision modes. As the latter is an important aspect of VR, this game was used to primarily investigate if 3D Stereoscopic Vision increases Player Immersion, even in a possibly distracting Local Multiplayer game. Among further insights, the results confirmed that Player Immersion is increased when using a 3D Stereoscopic Presentation compared to a Non-3D Monoscopic one.
LizzE – And the Light of Dreams is a Singleplayer 3rd Person Hack and Slay game based in a fantasy universe. The game basics were previously developed and further extended during this research. In an experiment, the game was used to primarily investigate in which ways 3rd Person VR games can work for a broad audience. Five different 3rd Person camera behavior modes were tested for their Player Enjoyment and Support of Gameplay, while closely looking at their influence on Simulator Sickness. The results led to using a default camera behavior based on the Buffered Pulling approach but providing users with the option to switch to a behavior based on the Blink Circling approach instead.
Gooze is a 1st Person VR puzzle game, taking place in a realistic horror environment with supernatural aspects. It was designed with diverse VR interaction technologies in mind and offers users different options to play the game, depending on available hardware and preferences. In an experiment, the game was used to primarily investigate how three different interaction setups and their underlying Locomotion and Virtual Object Interaction mechanics affected several User Experience (UX) aspects like: Player Enjoyment, Support of Gameplay, viii Simulator Sickness and Presence, with the latter being subdivided into the four sub-parameters: General Presence, Spatial Presence, Involvement and Experienced Realism. The results led to a detailed comparison of individual advantages and disadvantages of the assessed interaction modes and their mechanics.
The research is reported in three sections, one per artifact. Each section gives an overview of the artifact and documents its mechanics, style, content, feature set and discusses its design and development process. Furthermore, each section elaborates on the Lab and Showroom user studies that have been undertaken and their outcomes.
In summary, this thesis in combination with the portfolio of games, contribute to knowledge by providing three unique and documented artifacts, illustrating various game, interface and VR designs, extending the CDR approach to VR game development and informing the emerging field of the relationship between UX, interfaces and gameplay. Each single artifact and the whole collection can be used as a design and development precedent for practice and academia. Furthermore, guidelines for designing and developing specific aspects of VR games were identified, the experience related term of Rollenwahrnehmung was established in the area of VR, a Hybrid Journaling Technique was developed, using versioning commits for design reflection and an extension of Constructive Design Research to the field of digital games creation was undertaken. Additionally, this thesis offers a reflected rationale of different VR game interfaces affecting Rollenwahrnehmung, Perspective and Space. Eventually, it further provides an outlook on possible areas for future research, related to the overall study in a more general sense and more specific to individual artifacts and corresponding studies. |
|---|
