e verge of releasing what is perhaps the industry’s first VR experience to include a companion app, Lola and the Giant. The mobile VR experience for kids and families is slated to launch exclusively on Google Daydream. It is a first- and third-person VR adventure game where you experience the game’s epic journey as both a little girl with a mysterious power and as a powerful, stony giant. The company’s 11th VR title is particularly unique because it includes a companion app that allows another player to assist the VR player on their journey.
“We wanted to create a VR game that could be experienced by everyone, not just the user in the headset. We feel this is an important step to ensure the growth of the market,” says lead designer Matt Duff. “In the development process, we started to discover that one of the negative factors of VR was people mentioning the isolation of it, not only for the person inside the headset, but for the other people in the room, too,” he says.
Thus the companion app was born. Duff says it serves as a magical window into the same world as the VR player. “You see what they see, except you have your own unique controls, like the camera. You can move the phone using the gyroscope, and that moves the camera for you, but not for the VR player and vice versa. The VR player can move their head around and the companion app isn’t affected.”
The ability to have first- and third-person perspectives in VR, notes Yamada-Rice, is a feature kids have been asking for. “Children are saying it would be nice to be able to switch from third person to first, which is something they can do in Minecraft,” she says.
As far as providing two-player interaction in Lola, Climax developed a small hint system, where the person using the companion app can tap anywhere on the screen to make a giant arrow appear, which also appears in real time in the VR headset. “It’s a way of saying, ‘Hey, come over here, or look over there,’” notes Duff.
Lola is expected to launch as one self-contained premium adventure download divided up into six chapters. The game, according to Duff, is fairly straightforward narratively, but does include some puzzle problems and gaze-triggers to visually lead players.
Describing a lesson learned, Duff says the original version of Lola was much more traditional in terms of camera movement with a fully 3D camera that would turn with Lola. “We did it fairly slowly to keep the comfort level up. And 50% of the team testing it was absolutely fine, but the other 50% couldn’t deal with it and had to take the headsets off,” explains Duff. “So we ended up locking the camera so it never rotates with Lola, which has worked out for the best. It’s allowed us to focus on designing a world that you see in front of you, and all the levels of design and interaction stem off of that.”
Raising the bar
VRC is another company focused on designing groundbreaking new worlds and stories in VR. Co-founded in 2014 by two-time Oscar winner Robert Stromberg (Avatar, Maleficent) and former Overbrook Entertainment CEO Guy Primus, the studio prides itself on employing the best artists, storytellers, filmmakers and technicians to create imaginative, emotional and immersive VR worlds.
VRC’s latest project, Raising a Rukus, is the first storytelling franchise for families to hit the VR market, according to the company. The episodic, branching narrative series follows the magical adventures of a brother and sister and their mischievous pet dog, who are transported back in time to live among dinosaurs.
“We wanted to create something that hadn’t truly been done in VR which was create not just a series, but a well-told story with cinematic qualities including original orchestral music from James Newton Howard and audio from Skywalker Sound,” says Stromberg. “The other very important thing for us is that our stories have a message. In this case, the first 12-minute episode is about sharing and working together to solve problems.”
VRC recently secured a distribution deal with IMAX that will see the Raising a Rukus experience debut at the flagshi