Pushing the boundaries of VR | My Gamer Life - Destined for Greatness?
As the VR market continues to evolve, Chalit, the game director at Mixed Realms shares and emphasises the importance of finding the right niche and making each project unique in the studio’s journey.
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00:00Find the right audience, and if you can find that niche,
00:03it will be a rewarding experience.
00:06But if you can't, that might very well mean
00:08it's the last game you develop.
00:10♪♪
00:21Hi, I'm Charlotte.
00:22I am the Game Director at Mixed Realms.
00:24My main role is to determine the design,
00:27marketing, and feasibility of the games that we work on.
00:30Mixed Realms is a local game studio
00:31that has developed and published three titles to date.
00:35Two of them are VR games,
00:37Siren 2 VR and Hellsweeper VR.
00:39And the third title is kind of a PC slash Switch
00:43slash PlayStation title called Golden Quest.
00:46VR games are basically games
00:47that are experienced through a VR hardware.
00:50So typically, this means that you have a headset
00:53or two controllers.
00:54Some even go into, like, hand tracking and eye tracking, right?
00:57And the idea is that by putting this headset on,
01:00you're able to experience the world,
01:02the virtual world, in a very immersive manner.
01:05Siren 2 VR, released in 2016,
01:08was a VR experience that puts you in the shoes of a cyber ninja.
01:11So you can imagine yourself as Neo from the Matrix.
01:14You're able to do crazy things, like you can wall run,
01:16you can slide on the ground, firing a gun in each hand.
01:19You can do somersaults.
01:21And to top it all off, you can even slow down time.
01:23So it makes for a very cinematic experience.
01:26The second title that we have is Hellsweeper VR,
01:28kind of a spiritual successor to Siren 2 VR.
01:31We take away the cyber ninja component
01:33and we put you into the pits of hell
01:35where you fight against, like, hordes of grotesque demons.
01:38So the improvements over the original
01:40is that, one, there's more realistic combat physics.
01:43And the second, there's this new gesture system, right,
01:46where you can summon spells or weapons at the flick of a wrist,
01:49and then you can combine them by slamming them together.
01:51So you could infuse a fireball into a sword
01:54and turn it into a flaming sword.
01:56The third title that we worked on is Guardian Quest.
01:58That was released in 2022.
02:01So it's a roguelike deck-building game
02:03where you build up a party of three heroes,
02:05you build up a deck of cards,
02:06and you're able to play these cards
02:08to do tactical combat on the grid.
02:09And it harkens back to games like Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon.
02:13It all started in 2008 with Swagsoft.
02:15Swagsoft is a mobile app and website development company
02:18focused on serving government bodies,
02:20MNCs, SMEs, and startups.
02:22So it was founded by my colleagues Eldrick and Chiong.
02:25At that point of time,
02:27smartphones were becoming more readily available to consumers,
02:31and they saw the opportunity to bring mobile applications
02:34and game services to companies.
02:36So after a string of successfully completed projects in Swagsoft,
02:40I was invited to work on a new venture
02:42that Eldrick and Chiong had in mind.
02:44So it was more focused on creating our own game's IP
02:47rather than service work.
02:48So this happened in 2016,
02:50and that was really the start of the journey of Mixed Realms.
02:53At that point of time also,
02:54the VR industry was a very new and nascent one.
02:57Given the resources that we had at that point of time,
02:59it was better to go into the VR market.
03:02It made sense to do so.
03:03What we did was we shipped in our very first VR headset from the US
03:08way before you could get it on the shelves locally.
03:10We started playing around with that,
03:12and that's how the journey began.
03:14So it usually starts with the market research
03:16and creating the vision of what the game should play like.
03:20Oftentimes, it's guided by the game genres that we enjoy.
03:23So what we do is we think about what we liked about certain games,
03:27what we didn't like,
03:29things that we want to improve,
03:31or things that were lacking in other games.
03:33And then comes the process of pre-production,
03:36you know, prototyping, actual development.
03:38This can take from months to years,
03:40depending on the scope of the game.
03:42On the marketing and business side,
03:44I think the reality is just that the VR market is just so much smaller
03:47than the PC or mobile game market.
03:50So that means you need to be absolutely sure
03:52that the game can hit the right note,
03:54find the right audience.
03:55And if you can find that niche,
03:57it will be a rewarding experience.
03:59But if you can't,
04:01that might very well mean it's the last game you develop.
04:04I'm just about to have a meeting to discuss our next game, 13Z.
04:10We usually have these weekly discussions to go over
04:13what needs to be looked at
04:14and what we'll be doing in the coming weeks.
04:4811. Production
05:03This is part of my team.
05:05Over here, we have Teng Chee.
05:06Teng Chee is our Chief Product Officer,
05:08responsible for ensuring the quality of our products.
05:11Over here, we have Kuo An.
05:13Kuo An is our Producer slash Technical Artist.
05:15So anything of that nature goes through him.
05:17And over here, we have Ming Hui.
05:20He's on the Swagsoft side,
05:21but he occasionally helps out with testing and things like that.
05:24So this is the very first headset that we got.
05:27It's a HTC Vive.
05:29A lot of memories of it.
05:31A lot of sentimental value to me.
05:33I remember a lot of late night spent working with this headset
05:36and taking turns sharing this around.
05:39The thing about it is that it requires
05:41at least a 3x3 meter play space
05:44to really effectively test it.
05:46So in our previous office,
05:48it was really small and constricted.
05:50So I recall a lot of dents in the walls
05:53and a lot of bruised heads as we were trying to test it out.
05:56We moved over to the HTC Vive Pro.
06:00So when we got our hands on this,
06:01we found that it was an improvement
06:03in the sense that it comes with this headband
06:06and an audio headset.
06:07So it made wearing it a lot more comfortable
06:10and it made development a lot more accessible.
06:13So we were super excited to get our hands
06:15on the standalone headsets.
06:18The difference, as you can see,
06:19there is no wire coming out of it.
06:21This made it very easy to bring around.
06:24I could show this off to your friends,
06:26put it on, play a game,
06:27take it off and put it on charge.
06:30It's kind of a glimpse into the future of VR
06:33with how accessible it is.
06:35So looking at how the technology has improved
06:37over the years, how lightweight it can be,
06:40how much more accessible it can be,
06:42I'm very hopeful for the future of VR.
06:45Just as there are competitions for games
06:47like Counter-Strike, Valorant,
06:49or even physical airsoft matches,
06:51there is a VR equivalent for esports
06:53where players move about physically in their play space.
06:56So for example, if they were parrying around a corner,
06:59they would have to move their head to do so.
07:01If they were reloading their gun,
07:03they would have to mimic the motion of doing so,
07:06so on and so forth, right?
07:07And even just recently in Singapore,
07:09the Olympic esport tournament was held
07:11where a virtual taekwondo match happened.
07:15And it's crazy to think about,
07:16but it's kind of like really the beginning
07:18of what can imagine the possibilities of VR.
07:21Well, for game developers,
07:23I feel like it is the dream to flesh out
07:25your own unique worlds and put life to your ideas
07:28by creating our own IP as also the possibility
07:31for the IP to grow into something popular
07:33and take on a life of its own.
07:35It can be quite gratifying
07:38to see comments on the global stage
07:40where it's like, wow, I didn't know
07:42this game was developed in Singapore.
07:43With that said, it definitely has its own set of challenges.
07:46When we approach the development of a game,
07:48we need to think about it from the standpoint
07:50of developing a game for the global market
07:53and understanding where we stand amongst the competition.
07:56I think the interesting thing about the VR space
07:59is that unlike the PC and mobile space,
08:01in general, there is more room for creativity
08:04in terms of trying out new and unique mechanics.
08:07The idea of what a fun VR experience is
08:10is constantly being rewritten
08:12as we see different interpretations of the same mechanic
08:15with every new game that comes out.
08:17So for example, when we first started off with Silent Hill VR,
08:20the concept of being able to jump around,
08:24wall run, somersault, things like that,
08:25those were virtually unheard of.
08:27And in fact, it was even discouraged
08:29as it would lead to things like players feeling nauseous.
08:33But I take it as a point of pride
08:34that we actually experimented on that
08:37to prove that point wrong.
08:39I think if you focus on things like accessibility,
08:41you can really bring this experience to life.
08:43If you take all that into consideration,
08:45it's kind of like I can think back to each product
08:47or game that we've developed
08:49as kind of like an era in our life.
08:51I feel like I grew up in the golden age of gaming
08:54as a regular game-obsessed teenager.
08:56So I will attribute many of my influences and inspirations
08:59to the many games I've played growing up
09:03with my various gaming group of friends.
09:05For example, over like schooling years, NS years,
09:08and even today, games like Left 4 Dead, Helldivers.
09:11I've even participated in the World Cyber Games
09:15for Left 4 Dead 2, although I didn't get very far.
09:17But actually, even before that,
09:18games came to me in the form of physical media.
09:21Choose your own adventure game books.
09:23So these were books where you could read through
09:25and you could influence the path of the story.
09:28And there'll be good endings and there'll be bad endings.
09:31Basically, the whole thing really fired up my imagination.
09:34I personally developed an interest in developing games
09:37as far back as in secondary school.
09:39I remember one of the very first few internet games
09:41that I was exposed to at the point of time was Neopets.
09:45And it was also the era of flash game portals.
09:48Flash games were very trendy and ubiquitous back then.
10:05So, the difference between VR and traditional games
10:08boils down to two main differences.
10:10One is the immersion factor.
10:12What I mean is that when you put your headset on
10:14and you peer around,
10:16we're actually looking at a virtual world,
10:19something that takes you away from the current reality
10:21that we're living in.
10:23And the other one is the immersion factor.
10:25So, when you put your headset on and you peer around,
10:28you're actually looking at a virtual world,
10:30something that takes you away from the current reality
10:33that you're in.
10:34The second one is the option of physicality.
10:37So, what this means is that if you see something interesting
10:40in the virtual environment,
10:41you can use your virtual hand to reach out and grab it.
10:45You can bring it to your face, you can inspect it.
10:48And this is a very different feeling
10:49from just using a mouse and controller
10:52and interacting with the game.
10:53So, I would say it brings a whole new dimension
10:55of the idea of interacting with objects in the game.
10:59So, this is down to very simple things
11:01like the angle of your virtual hand or virtual controller
11:04with relation to your actual hand.
11:06So, when you actually reach out and grab something,
11:08it feels as natural as possible.
11:10Sometimes we do have to amp it up, right?
11:12So, if they were to slice or bash something,
11:14we would apply a force.
11:15Like, for example, if you uppercut an enemy,
11:17they will fly straight up into the air.
11:19With that said, the whole point of VR
11:21is really to give experiences to the player
11:24that they can't experience in real life.
11:26Game development is a marathon and success isn't guaranteed.
11:29So, I think the important thing is that
11:31you have to be content and fulfilled
11:34with the decisions that you make.
11:35And if you find your work meaningful,
11:38I think it makes the day-to-day a lot more enjoyable.
11:41So, it's as much about the journey as it is the destination.