Ghosts

A VR game that challenges you to ignore the spectacular promises of Virtual Reality technology by actively avoiding to look at them.

VR device marketing faces a challenge: The experience of an immersive VR world cannot be presented directly, instead, bedazzled human models wearing the devices are placed in fantastical, mostly kitschy surroundings functioning as inadaequate placeholders.

»Ghosts« is a VR game that plays in a black void. The only visible elements are marketing shots of models wearing VR headsets that are slowly moving towards the player from all directions, and once they reach you, the game is over. Looking at any of the 2D-models speeds up their movement towards you, so to stay in the game, you have to constantly turn your head away from the elements that circle around you.

To me, the most interesting aspect of the current VR ressurgence are not the worlds that game developers build, but the solitude, isolation of the experience. VR is the ultimate escapism device,
it´s a black box on your head,  shielding you from outer influences by design. The bodies of the people used as „experience representatives“ in the marketing materials are the only indicators of the percieved worlds: hands pointing at invisible wonders, mouths opened in amazement. They  are Ghosts  shuffeling towards you in the blackness of non-space, frozen in excitement.

The image is a screenshot of the game prototype built in vvvv.