Weekly Checkin - We had a demo table at VR FEST - Positive Experience

[Mindshiftvr]

Hi there, It has been crazy and it feels like things are moving fast all the time. Mindshiftvr had a demo table at the VR FEST at the Innovation Hanger at the Palace of Fine Arts. We did not know quite what to expect because as you know, we are not done with our first title "Meditation Forest". It is a well refined prototype at this point. So we went in open minded for the outcome. Wow. We had a big line to try it and guess what people liked about it? "It is not a game", "there is nothing to shoot",  and "there is no score".

It is a mindful meditation application, moving meditation in nature.  A way to disconnect from the world and get centered. We had an overwhelmingly positive response and people asked me when and where they could buy it.

We have a ways to go to make it exactly what we want, but shockingly some things we considered to be a problem were things that turned out to be a big draw for the users.

While there are many meditation apps out there, we are very different.  Our title is very detailed at this point and has considerable exploration spaces.  Our secret sauce is that both Hallie and I are old time VR people and know many of the parameters already.
Hallie is a veteran VR programmer and I am formally educated as an architect with a run doing business development and marketing for VR in the mid 90's. We are extremely passionate and dedicated to starting a studio. This scholarship concept has been our goal but for us we could use the money now. We need gear, software and dedicated office space. At this rate I will be submitted a completed title in August. We really could use some Oculus Hand Controllers as right now we are using the Vive to develop. Hint Hint.
Well, I am off to meet Hallie and spend the day inside our world rewriting the voice over to match all that we have built.

[Anonymous]

I actually love hearing, "there is nothing to shoot", and "there is no score" in a positive way! As a game designer, this is really cool because it challenges us to think about what is an experience that motivates and moves the player forward instead of some old standbys.
I'd be interested to know about any other feedback on when people were done with meditation, or did you give them a time limit or end of demo screen?

[Mindshiftvr]

You know, it was interesting because there were some hardcore gamers who tried it and they actually were the ones who wanted to stay in the longest... up to ten minutes. So we did have to impose a time limit of four minutes.
We did not have the formal meditation running for this demo, it was just to experience the environment. We consider the act of disconnecting your mind in full immersion "moving meditation" or meditation in nature. If we had had the formal meditation running people would have been immersed a very long time.

I think and end of demo screen is a good idea.

We were really kind of cowboys about the whole thing as it was not something we had planned on participating in. We were asked to join in, so it was not a polished a demo. That is part of the magic I learned, it really did not matter. People were just blown away and into the experience.