With just days to go until early registration for the first-ever standalone Virtual Reality Developers Conference ends September 7th at 11:59 PM Pacific, conference organizers want to quickly remind you about some of the great talks taking place at the November show.
For example, in the VRDC Games & Entertainment track talk “Prepped for Launch, The EVE: Valkyrie Development Story” lead game designer Andrew Willans with CCP Games will deliver an earnest narrative of the development of EVE: Valkyrie from prototype to launch.
This lecture will cover many aspects of game design from UX to gameplay and mechanics balancing. Willans will also share and discuss the best practices with examples from various stages in production as the hardware, and vision for the game evolved. Plus, the presentation will also cover the launch of PSVR and discuss how community-led development and cross-platform play are essential ingredients for the success of social VR gaming.
Also on the Games & Entertainment track, Ubisoft Montreal’s Olivier Palmieri will be sharing lessons learned from his work designing the remarkable VR flight game Eagle Flight in “Full Speed Flying in VR! The R&D Behind Eagle Flight.”
The game was the result of an R&D project aimed at finding a way to allow comfortable high speed motion in VR, so Palmieri will describe this research (e.g. effects of motion in peripheral vision), and solutions he and his team found (e.g. dynamic peripheral vision blinders). He’ll also run down how he and his compatriots sought to create VR flight game controls that would not only be comfortable, but also very intuitive and precise. The results surpassed their expectations, in some surprising ways!
And in the Games & Entertainment track session “Reinventing ‘Psychonauts’ for VR” project lead Chad Dawson with Double Fine will talk about how the team designed and built a fresh experience from the ground up, one that captures the strengths of the original Psychonauts while embracing the immersion and gameplay that can only be delivered in VR.
His talk promises to be fun and insightful, as it covers the design evolution of the upcoming VR game Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin (promo image pictured) — including the specific challenges of camera perspectives, control iteration, navigation, and interactive dialog unique to title with a strong focus on stylized characters, story, and humor.
This is just a sample of what’s taking place in the Games & Entertainment track at VRDC this year, which is just one of the four great tracks of talks taking place during the event!
So head over to the VRDC website now and register to attend the conference, which will feature a plethora of great VR/AR talks spanning games, entertainment, and beyond into subjects such as healthcare, journalism, travel, manufacturing, retail, live events, real estate, training, and so much more.
For more information on VRDC 2016, visit the show’s official website and subscribe to regular updates via Twitter and Facebook.
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