VR ICE BREAKER BINGO
When this module was introduced in the first term of my game design master's course, we were assigned a team which concludes students from UX Design, Animation, Game Design and Game Programmers. After this, the group I belonged to was given the theme of making an Immersive world (each group had different themes such as AR, Narrative Games etc). By the end of the module, we aimed to create a working prototype of the given theme. As the Game Designer in the group, my role was to gamify the VR immersive experience of the world. I closely collaborated with the UI Designer, Game Programmer and Animator. I was responsible for analysing and researching other VR-related games. Thus, trying to add a fun element to the VR environment, leads to building an immersive world for the community as envisioned by our team. Initially started with researching user feedback and all the way to designing technical elements and animation assets to be added to the game. Aims and Objectives My aim was to design a VR immersive experience that would explore, investigate, and comprehend the context of social phobia in higher education, as well as the range of accessible options for students who are dealing with social anxiety. The game's main objective is to deliver a VR experience for socially anxious students on their first day of university. This game acts as an icebreaker event virtually. Before beginning the rigorous studies at the institution, this game also attempts to foster a sense of community among the students. As seen in the findings from Hajure, M. and Abdu, Z. (2020). Work Process I initially started with a brief discussion with my group mates about the possibilities of a VR world with a sense of community building. Every group member produced an innovative solution iterating through which we landed on a similar ground that focused mainly on social anxiety. Many of the useful findings are taken from Sağar, M.E. (2021). Once the ideation was done and a solution was selected, the next phase was the user interviews where each group member participated. Summarising the interviews; every person had some difficulties connecting with other people socially for the first time due to several reasons. Different people had different situations of social anxiety, the mutual social anxiety was based on the first day at university or at work. We decided to go with the university option. After researching commonly played and engaging social games we decided to do bingo as the game to be added as the theme for our Icebreaker VR project. Game references related to social anxiety taken from the articles Joel Couture (2016) and Carl, E. et al. (2019) VR Bingo Game Overview I started making the game rules once the UI designer finished the overall UI flow of the VR world right from where the user logins to the end. My main focus was the Bingo game element of our project. Game Rules 1. Select the topics/areas of interest. a. The player must select at least 3 topics of interest and then their sub-interest to create a bingo card. b. With the help of Google, I researched content based on the most common interests of people which can be used further via the bingo game to socialise in the VR world. 2. A Bingo card/board will appear based on your area of selection. 3. Try talking with people and see if they match any of your interests. a. Carry out communication with the other fellow players in the VR world and find out whose interest matches the player’s Bingo card. 4. If any of the interest matches, ask them to sign their name so you can strike them off the list. 5. Once you are done repeat the same by socialising and talking to other people unless the entire or a particular row/column of the bingo board is struck off. 6. Get points or earn rewards for each time you complete bingo or a particular objective. Game Flow: The group decided on the bare minimum of 4-8 players since the game would not function with only 2 or 3 players. The "Interests" phase of the game, where the player chooses their interests from menus before entering the VR room, was where most of the game's material was concentrated. The player receives a list of relevant subjects in a UI pop-up screen after logging in with their credentials. Then, they must check off every category that appeals to them, such as Food, Travel, or Movies. The participants will have the opportunity to make more specific selections on a subsequent screen of subcategories after choosing their interest-based categories. For instance, if someone chose the category "Music," they may choose Pop, Rock, Metal, or Techno depending on the style of music they like. Every category's material was developed using the typical likes and dislikes of everyday people. The key goal was to keep the information on the bingo cards realistic and straightforward so that playing the icebreaker game with other players would be less stressful and time-consuming. User research is used to provide content, such as "someone who loves pastries" or "likes football," that helps users connect and engage in more meaningful chat. Following the selection of each user's interests, the game will randomly select nine topics of interest (or "tasks") for each player to complete on a single Bingo Card from a database created by all the player's indicated interests. The team decided on this approach after weighing it against the possibility of using all the interest topics available in order to guarantee that each player would be able to find a match in the room for each of their assigned topics in their Bingo Card, giving every player in the game the opportunity to complete their Card. If they were given a topic no one in the room had chosen as an interest, this would not be conceivable. Rewards System A crown is applied to their avatar as part of the reward system for this prototype. In addition to rewarding the player, this is also evident to other players. The other players are encouraged to complete the activities on their Bingo cards. Any player who beats the current record will be replaced at the top of the leaderboard. VR study references for the project Before starting with VR gamification, I briefly researched games based on VR and tried to understand what features they had to offer. I randomly started playing a VR chat game as a user and tried to understand the game flow and the immersive play and chat experience inside it. The other game I came across was Beat Saber where I had to slice blocks that represent musical beats with a pair of coloured-contrast sabers. This VR game was mostly based on the player’s rhythms while they played. Reflections: I thought this was a practical method to learn the module through project interest-based allowing every player in the game a sabres collaboration. This helps us to prepare and be ready for the industry as we would be working on live projects in a team. I learned to tackle the problem in a positive way, having a different point of view among the team members for the solution, even if working on the same project. The ongoing conversation between the groups was what gave the joint production greater substance and reality. Instead of becoming bogged down by my own ideas and failing to detect flaws, a multi-person collaboration allowed the team to swiftly identify issues through conversation. As a game designer, my work in the VR project was restricted as the game was just an element of the world. Most of the design work was carried out by the UX/UI designers. I had to communicate with them to make sure they were working on the user design flow and not the game aspect. Despite the collision, I was happy with how the project turned out as the main goal of the team was to develop a working prototype that reflected our ideas as a team. Resources
Computer Video Games based on VR
VR Chat Game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/438100/VRChat/
Carl, E. et al. (2019) “Virtual reality exposure therapy for anxiety and related
disorders: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials,” Journal of Anxiety
Disorders, 61, pp. 27–36. Available at:
Hajure, M. and Abdu, Z. (2020) “social phobia and its impact on quality of life among
regular undergraduate students of Mettu University, mettu, ethiopia,” Adolescent Health,
Medicine and Therapeutics, Volume 11, pp. 79–87. Available at:
PMCID: PMC7308132.
Sağar, M.E. (2021) “Intervention for social anxiety among university students with a
solution-focused group counseling program,” International Journal of
Progressive Education, 17(3), pp. 316–326. Available at:
Joel Couture (2016) “Every decision is wrong: Portraying social anxiety in a game”, Available at:
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