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Being a Bird WIP - Flight Demo Available

molton
Explorer
Edit: There's a Being a Bird playable Flight Demo for Windows systems available (read further down in the thread for details
http://www.lightput.com/Being_a_Bird-Flight_Demo.zip

Hello, this is my upcoming Oculus Rift game called Being a Bird. It's pretty unfinished at this point. Being a Bird is an immersive, fun experience somewhat similar to being a bird. In Being a Bird, you will have the freedom to fly around and explore as you wish, but if you want some more structured fun and challenges, the bird in the picture and the video will have some fun and informative things for you to do. Much of the basics of the game are already completed. I still have to finish detailing the models and script in many unfinished gameplay elements and work out some bugs of course.

The game requires a fairly modern PC with a decent video card, an Oculus Rift, and a mouse with a mouse wheel or a mouse and keyboard. (mouse wheel recommended) You can look around with the mouse on the ground, but in mid-air the looking and turning is all controlled by the Oculus Rift VR headset. The mouse wheel or keyboard controls your flight speed which also affects how quickly you turn and climb while flying.


21 REPLIES 21

maxmedia
Honored Guest
Great concept! If you haven't seen this it may give you ideas on look and feel: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/geek-straps-gopro-camera-onto-eagle-epic-flying-video...

Good luck with the kickstarted!

molton
Explorer
My friend showed me that the other day, that's a cool video.

One of my KickStarter backers made a video promoting it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLdCrrq93oY&feature=youtu.be

people are so cool, Can't thank him enough for helping get the word out. Things are progressing good, I'm finishing up detailing the models and I'll be doing most of the fun stuff soon.

molton
Explorer
The KickStarter is not doing well, I'm thinking about getting a playable demo ready to maybe get some more interest towards Being a Bird.

Krisper
Explorer
OK, I have been following this thread since it started and I had no idea you had a Kickstarter. Now I see it in your signature, and have backed it. You need to promote this more.

Ganjaroach
Explorer
Looks very cool, games that use the Rift to control flight are all ways epic! Can't wait to try this out.

molton
Explorer
"Krisper" wrote:
OK, I have been following this thread since it started and I had no idea you had a Kickstarter. Now I see it in your signature, and have backed it. You need to promote this more.


You are probably right, but there is simply no time for that right now. There's links on reddit and stuff, and a very kind backer made his own youtube video about it, do you have any suggestions on how I should promote this better? The only thing I got is playable demo, I really didn't want to release a demo until the game was done but I could get something together

Krisper
Explorer
For me, just mentioning the Kickstarter in the OP would have helped. I'm too busy to look at peoples signatures. Beyond that I don't know.

molton
Explorer
There's a demo of my upcoming game, Being a Bird available now. This demo only allows the player to fly around the 3d world, all other gameplay elements are not in this demo. I'm releasing this early demo of Being a Bird to try to get people interested in the project and hopefully help my Kickstarter campaign I'm re-starting on December 15th for the small amount of funding I need.

http://www.lightput.com/Being_a_Bird-Flight_Demo.zip

Press the mouse button to fly, use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to control your speed, if you left click while mid-air while looking down you will go into a dive. If the head tracking doesn't seem right hit escape to bring up the menu and select the middle "Recalibrate Oculus RIft VR Headset" button. Your flight speed also effects how fast you climb and turn while flying. To climb tilt your head back, to turn tilt your head to the side. You can look down while flying, if you right click while looking down and flying you will go into a dive.

All the flying is controlled by Oculus Rift VR head tracking, so your neck could use a good stretch before you get started.

Ganjaroach
Explorer
Very Cool! Downloading now. 🙂

getnamo
Honored Guest
Played around with the demo, here are some thoughts:
-I liked the bird animations and how you stick to everything when you land, making that part easy and intuitive.
-Nice scenery, a pleasant surrounding; hope you fill it out with fun things to do!

-The controls are odd. I understand you roll your head to turn, but it's coupled with speed in a way that makes precise maneuvers difficult specifically turning at low speeds. Additionally flying upwards works inconsistently, overall the way you fly feels off. Play around with the controls, IMO try to make controls which make precise movement easy and intuitive, everything else follows from that. Consider what you want a player to be able to do and make it easy for them to do it.
-Wind volume changes with speed, great! A suggestion: to make audio loops not repetitive find a few samples of a similar sound, make loops and fade transitions between them, then randomize how they chain together. This is typically used for footsteps in games, could be used for the wind.

With more work I'm sure this will be a fun game; I'll be backing again on the 15th, Good luck!
Current Project: Skycall