Our sequence Inside XR Design highlights and unpacks examples of nice XR design. At this time we’re Beat Saber (2019) and why its most important design aspect can be utilized to make nice VR video games that don’t have anything to do with music or rhythm.
Editor’s Be aware: It’s arduous to imagine Beat Saber was first launched in Early Entry seven years in the past at the moment. From day one, it was clear the sport was one thing particular, besides we couldn’t have predicted it could grow to be considered one of VR’s best-selling video games of all time—a title it nonetheless holds all these years later. In celebration of the sport’s lasting legacy we’re re-publishing our episode of Inside XR Design which explores the key to Beat Saber’s enjoyable, and the way it may be utilized to VR video games which don’t have anything to do with music.
You could find the whole video under, or proceed studying for an tailored textual content model.
Extra Than Music
Welcome again to a different episode of Inside XR Design. Now pay attention, I’m going to say one thing that doesn’t appear to make any sense in any respect. However by the tip of this text, I assure you’ll perceive precisely what I’m speaking about.
Beat Saber… is not a rhythm recreation.
Now simply wait a second earlier than you name me insane.
Beat Saber has music, and it has rhythm, sure. However the defining attribute of a rhythm recreation just isn’t simply music, but in addition a scoring system that’s based mostly on timing. The higher your timing, the upper your rating.
Now right here’s the half most individuals don’t really notice. Beat Saber doesn’t have any timing part to its scoring system.
That’s proper. You would attain ahead and chop a block proper because it comes into vary. Or you could possibly hit it on the final second earlier than it goes fully behind you, and in each instances you might earn the identical variety of factors.
So if Beat Saber scoring isn’t about timing, then how does it work? The scoring system is definitely based mostly on movement. The truth is, it’s really designed to make you progress in particular methods if you would like the best rating.
The important thing scoring elements are how broad your swing is and the way even your minimize is thru the middle of the block. So Beat Saber throws these cubes at you and challenges you to swing broadly and exactly.
And whereas Beat Saber has music that sure helps you already know when to maneuver, greater than a rhythm recreation… it’s a movement recreation.
Particularly, Beat Saber is constructed round a VR design idea that I prefer to name ‘Instructed Movement’, which is when a recreation asks you to maneuver your physique in particular methods.
And I’m going to make the case that Instructed Movement is a design idea that may be fully separated from video games with music. That’s to say: the factor that makes Beat Saber so enjoyable can be utilized to design nice VR video games which have nothing to do with music or rhythm.
Instructed Movement
Okay so to know how you should utilize Instructed Movement in a recreation that’s not music-based let’s check out Till You Fall (2020) from developer Schell Video games. This isn’t remotely a rhythm recreation—though it has an superior soundtrack—but it surely makes use of the identical Instruction Movement idea that makes Beat Saber a lot enjoyable.
Whereas many VR fight video games use physics-based programs that permit gamers to strategy fight with arbitrary motions, Till You Fall is constructed from the bottom up with a notion of how it desires gamers to maneuver.
And earlier than you say that physics-based VR fight is objectively the higher alternative in all instances, I would like you to contemplate what Beat Saber could be like if gamers might minimize blocks in any path they needed always.
Certain, you’ll nonetheless be slicing blocks to music, and but, it could be considerably tougher to search out the enjoyable and circulate that makes the sport really feel so nice. Beat Saber makes use of intentional patterns that trigger gamers to maneuver in methods which can be fluid and pleasurable. With out the arrows, participant actions could be chaotic they usually’d be flailing randomly.
So similar to Beat Saber advantages by guiding a participant to make motions which can be significantly satisfying, fight in VR can profit too. Within the case of Till You Fall, the sport makes use of Instructed Movement not solely to make gamers transfer a sure approach, but in addition to make them really feel a sure approach.
In relation to blocking, gamers really feel weak as a result of they’re pressured right into a defensive place. Not like a physics-based fight recreation the place you possibly can at all times resolve when to hit again, enemies in Till You Fall have particular assault phases, and the participant should block whereas it occurs, in any other case you danger taking a success and dropping considered one of simply three hit factors.
Due to this strategy, the sport can modify the depth the participant feels by various the quantity, place, and velocity of blocks that have to be made. Weak enemies would possibly hit slowly and with out a lot variation of their assaults. Whereas sturdy enemies will ship a flurry of assaults that make the participant actually really feel like they’re underneath stress.
This provides the developer very exact management over the depth, problem, and feeling of every encounter. And it’s that management that makes Instructed Movement such a great tool.
Dodging is much like blocking, however as a substitute of elevating your weapon to the indicated place, you could transfer your complete physique out of the way in which. And this feels fully totally different from simply blocking.
Whereas some VR fight video games would let the participant ‘dodge’ simply by transferring their thumbstick to slip out of the way in which, Till You Fall makes use of Instructed Movement to make the act of dodging far more bodily participating.
And with regards to attacking, gamers can squeeze in hits wherever they’ll till an enemy’s protect is damaged, which then opens a chance to deal a bunch of harm.
And whereas one other VR recreation may need simply left this opening for gamers to hit the enemy as many instances as they’ll, Till You Fall makes use of Instruced Movement to ask gamers to swing in particular methods.
Swinging in extensive arcs and alongside specific angles offers probably the most injury and makes you progress in a approach that feels actually highly effective and assured. It’s like the other feeling of while you’re underneath assault. It actually feels nice while you land all of the combo hits.
