viropaulski-blog - Tumblr blog

[viropaulski-blog]

WHAT IS VIRO MOVE

Viro Move is one of the VR Fitness products from the team at FitReality.

This particular product is a free roaming game. As gamers and developers, we all tend to spend a lot of our lives sitting in front of our beloved gaming machines, when you work and play in the same area it’s obvious you’re not going to move very much. And so our challenge was simple, how we can use VR to help gamers to move more. As we progressed with the idea of moving gamers we realized our game was beginning to feel like a real workout. Meaning we were really beginning to sweat and feel the burn as we tested our early levels.

So we invited fitness experts into the development process to help us to mimic actual aerobics workouts, instantly we found that by stretching gameplay to the very edge we were now able to maneuver players to move around the game zone. Suddenly we had a game idea that was both engaging and healthy, and with that eureka moment Viro was born. So in a way Viro Move is our most important product of all because this is the one product which we built as gamers for gamers.

If you know our industry you will know that pitching a VR fitness game to the VR community is no easy feat. You guys know how the best VR games should look and feel, from a development sense exposing our game to the community will help us gather the right type of feedback to ensure Viro Move is the absolute best it can be.

As gamers -this is our baby. For the whole team, this will be a lifetime dream realized. We have been extra critical of every element of the game, even the tiniest details have had long late-night debates in the office. We debate and argue a lot because as gamers, we want other gamers to love the game as much as we do.

So VIRO MOVE is a free-roaming full body workout VR  game. If you are a VR gamer, you will know the BEAT SABER concept. And it will make sense if I tell you VIRO MOVE is a bit like BEAT SABER – but on steroids. For those of you who don’t know BeatSaber, I say – “OMG why not!”

BeatSabre – you have our deepest respect!

It is an amazing game that allows players to slice boxes to the beat of the soundtrack. The gaming community went wild for the gameplay. From a developer’s perspective, this game helped to propel the VR gaming community forward, faster and wider than almost all others in our industry.

Fans of that game will be happy to hear that our game has all the same wonderful game mechanics. Custom beat mapped music and that highly addictive sword slashing gameplay which amazed Jimmy Fallon and the entire VR gaming community.

In VIRO MOVE we also incorporated other game mechanics such as boxing, shooting, stretching, in-game weapons changing. Additionally, all of our levels are based on the movements from actual fitness routines. Our level designers worked with personal trainers and physiotherapists to create full body in-game movements that mimic fitness routines across multiple cardio workouts.

We began by green-screening our designers performing specific aerobics movements and then moved on to mapping specific movements from weapons training all the way to shadow boxing. For example, during a sword fight, you will complete Zumba, aerobics, dance and Kenjutsu movements without ever really knowing -You are very welcome.

*Our level designer Pawel, building lunges into his swordplay.

We designed the in-game immersive elements with an insanely high level of graphical environments along with the widest choice of intricately detailed weapons, obstacles, and environments.

Personally, I’ve played dozens of VR games, so it is difficult to shock me. However, when I first immersed myself into a Viro environment – things were moving in the background, birds were flying, the grass was blowing all around me. I mean, the guys didn’t have to make the random things in the background move for this game to be amazing, we could have had success with a much simpler environment. But the team believed the immersive experience is equally as important as the fitness routines, and honestly – it is.

Our developers pretty much incorporated every VR fitness mechanic that’s been proven to move virtual man, even invented a few new ones -and all that before the design team went back again to polish the tiniest detail. Then -and only then, they found ways to make those perfectly textured tiny details in the background move with the wind, the experience is unbelievable.

VIRO MOVE FITNESS AND WEAPONS TRAINING

Our game has incorporated boxing gloves, swords and guns as weapons to help players feel fully immersed in the gameplay. These weapons also help us to deliver training movements specific to each fighting style. I can honestly say – as an aspiring graphic designer, watching our artists drop highly detailed weapon skins every week, truly is a thing of beauty.

I’m not just blowing our trumpet here -at least, not much I hope. But I am in awe every time I see a new weapon appear. I mean, how could you not be? The weapons look so realistic, I’m super excited anytime one of the designers mails me a video flyover of his new weapon, the level of detail is inspiring. It’s hard to imagine it’s something that has been squeezed out of his head and onto a computer screen.

VIRO GUN TRAINING

I sometimes sit at my desk and zoom in on random weapons just to see the detail and effort that has been crafted into designing them.

When it comes to VIRO MOVE guns, I am the office nerd -even though when it comes to gun training, I am without question the worst player in the team. But I don’t care, Viro Move guns are my all-time favorite weapons. Our team has painstakingly crafted so many tiny details into each gun. Whenever a new gun drops I plan a good twenty or thirty minutes on photoshop – just to zoom in on a macro level so I check out the little things.

I’m not sure when I became a virtual gun nerd, but I am pretty sure it happened sometime during the last few months.

SWORD TRAINING

If you have never trained with swords, you have never lived. Holding a pair of swords on a mountain top feels nothing short of spectacular.

Now, this is my thing, training with swords is the highlight of my day. If you believe in past lives -as I now do, you will understand when I say “I’m pretty sure I was a secret Ninja in a past life”.

I just can’t get enough of VIRO’s sword training, I can train for thirty minutes alone with swords and although I am a sweaty train wreck at the end, I’m smiling all the way through.  And I honestly can’t describe it, it’s the simple things that inspire me. Like the feeling, I get by tipping two ends of the swords together before the game begins. The touch creates a vibration from the controllers in the form of a delicate sense of resistance, and happens anytime the glowing blade tips touch each other, as it would in real life, clearly! The feeling is just awesome.

BOXING TRAINING

No detail was spared. If you look closely you can see our designers even allowed for leather wear above the knuckles of this skin.

As a young man in my non-virtual life, I trained for some time to be a boxer. As it turned out I was a better Ninja than a boxer, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t relish the opportunity to use my experience and skills to get critical with our boxing level designers. Indeed, I felt this was my real opportunity to position myself as the team expert, and boy I was so very wrong.

Let me start by saying, I don’t think any of our guys have had real-life boxing training as I did. But they have worked tirelessly with professional trainers to build routines that simulate jabs, crosses, uppercuts and even under hooks and all the other boxing maneuvers my competitors used against my nose as a young man.

Watching these guys test their levels is sometimes like watching professionals shadow boxing in the gym. They have nailed all the movements, while I –the semi-professional, look and feel like a fat middle-aged dad trying to swat a nest of angry hornets. I’m getting better now, but it’s not at all like riding a bike, shadow boxing is an art form that needs time, practice and physical agility to pull off.

I need to pause a little to talk about our boxing gloves. We have an ever growing range of skins, from futuristic metal gauntlets to traditional leather and fabric gloves. Granted, you don’t get much of a chance in the game to look at the gloves, but I highly recommend that players take the time to stand there – when fully immersed, and just look at the detail that has gone into designing each of our glove skins.

Our designers have added details which to help create an enhanced sense of reality. For example, some leather gloves have ever so slight wear across the knuckles, really it’s the smallest things that make me happy sometimes.

STRETCHING

They say you should always save the best till last. I’ve always been a bit of a rule breaker and I’m not going to change today, so I have saved the worst for last. I hate stretching, I hate it more than going to the actual gym. But to be honest, it’s the most important Viro Move training tool. I try to train for twenty minutes every day and while that may not seem like a lot – trust me, after twenty minutes of Viro Move you will look and feel like you have gone ten rounds with Ivan Drago. I didn’t always make the time to use the stretching levels, which always felt like a bit of a mistake the morning after.

You can easily forget that Viro Move is a real aerobics workout – but it is, you will use muscles you didn’t know you had and if you don’t make time for stretching as part of your warm up and cool down, please expect the muscle cramp fairy to come to visit you while you sleep – and she’s not a kind lady.

Stretching is not always going to be as sexy as boxing, shooting or sword-fighting – fact, so we have put a lot of energy into making it relaxing and enjoyable, and remember most professional sports coaches will advise you to make time for stretching before and after training. Our team has built the stretching and flexibility movements into our game to help you eliminate that morning after pain. I have learned the hard way that a  six-pack is no good to anybody if you are not flexible and agile enough to stand up straight the next day. As it’s too late for me to become the next Arnold, I will settle for the ability to climb out of bed and bounce down the stairs like the sprightly twenty-year-old I still feel I am.

Stretching and flexibility are my new favorite buzz-words – still, my least favorite exercises but most probably the best thing Viro Move has given me – after swords!

MIXED MODE

I am a huge fan of Deadpool. Handsome, sarcastic, energetic, sexy, funny, muscular, worshiped by millions of women and a handful of men do you see the similarities? That’s right! Deadpool has exactly the same qualities.

The similarities don’t end there, when I play VIRO MOVE, I do so in “mixed mode”. Meaning, after I set the level, environment, music, difficulty, I can then set the game to mix weapons during gameplay. One minute I am shooting and dodging drones the next minute I’m slashing and boxing orbs. Guys, you can make believe you are Deadpool – the Ladies, we will imagine you are the lovely Laura Croft.

We built mixed mode for those of us who are experts, those who really want that extra challenge at the highest level. It’s fast, furious and even though you know a weapon change is coming, changing the weapons mid-game requires some serious practice and technique.

THE FUTURE OF VIRO

Since the initial idea we have gone on to develop other solutions for the fitness industry, but as a small team of developers, our efforts are focused on ensuring the gaming elements of all our games are the best they can be. Meaning, for sure we will help you get fit -it’s our mission in life, but we always want you to have fun in the process.

Blog is written by VIRO Paulski first published on the VIROMOVE website