The Best Virtual Reality Experiences for Introducing Anyone to VR
P.S. Also works with your parents
Thanks to Oculus and its more than 2 million sold Quest 2 headsets, VR has become much more accessible and popular. For many people like myself, this opened the possibility to introduce VR to friends and family.
For me, two experiences in particular have worked well with people of different ages and technological backgrounds. As long as you pay attention to the most common problems while introducing them to VR, anyone can become a fan.
The medium of VR is still new, and most people didn’t have their first experience, so make the first one an exciting one. To make sure everyone has fun, pay attention to these points:
1. Comfort
- Make sure that your audience feels safe. Tell them where the limitations of the space are and how to see them. Show if they should walk around, or better sit down.
- Some people tried VR in their job and had bad experiences with motion sickness, don’t force those people to try again. They often are afraid already what leads to more motion sickness. With the first experience, I present a better way for them to lose their fear.
2. Navigation
- In my experience, it’s better, depending on the people, to not tell too much about the buttons and handling of the controller. Too much explanation unsettles, and the first games are self-explanatory anyway.
- Give them the controllers, fix them on the wrist, take their hand and show the buttons they need
Instead of going to bed at 11 o’clock, two hours of VR gaming later, they jazzed up to try more VR experiences as soon as possible.
Acron — For the Younger and Technical Affine People
The in my eyes ultimate experience to show multiple friends together the fun you can have in VR is “Acrons — attack of the squirrels”. Multiple people can enjoy the experience with only one headset in the room and everyone having fun.
How does the game work?
Everyone downloads an app called “acron — attack of the squirrels” to their smartphone, no buying, no login, just downloading — the person with the VR headset purchases for 20 Euros the app in the VR store.
Once opened, you give your friends a 6 digit number to log in to the world on their smartphones. Once everyone is in, the VR player is a tree who protects his acorns by throwing balls on the players who approach to steal them. The players with their smartphones are represented by squirrels with different skills, like digging or building bridges.
The best thing is that one person at a time can experience VR, but the rest won’t sit around bored. The handling is simple and self-explanatory. If your audience is used to smartphones and computers, they will catch it up on their own.
The Experience
The first evening was with my girlfriend and three friends. We played after playing several board games and a couple of bottles of wine.
One friend had experiences with VR. Unfortunately, the experiences left him with sickness multiple times, so he wasn’t eager to play with a VR headset. The others were new.
I started the game by being the tree, everybody had fun, but it kicked up when the first friend wore the headset. I didn’t explain any buttons, and well so, because it’s so self-explanatory that you do not have to bother to overstrain your friends.
She loved it, understood the game immediately and screamed with happiness. Her boyfriend was even more excited while being the tree and asked while being hyped when and where he can buy his own headset.
The Takeaway
Make no mistake being a squirrel on your smartphone is equally as fun as you get better and form teams. On a night that might have ended after being exhausted, acorns brought energy into the group and hyped everyone up.
The friend who had bad experiences before didn’t try it, but no problem, because even he got excited about VR just by stealing his friend’s acorns, and so his fear of VR lowers and next time he’ll try.
The second evening was equally as perfect. A slow down fading evening, no one had energy, but defending your nuts made both friends as happy and energised as possible.
Instead of going to bed at 11 o’clock, two hours of VR gaming later, they jazzed up to try more VR experiences as soon as possible.
I didn’t imagine my parents liking VR, but the possibility of standing in a place you had never seen before and made them hyper about VR.
National Geographic — For the Less Tech Affine
“National Geographic Explore VR” is an experience that takes you to Antarctica and Machu Pichu. It’s not a guided tour but invites you to explore both sides and its mysteries by walking around, taking photos and reconstruct places.
It’s easy in handling, and the absence of time pressure makes it a calm down experience with many “wow” moments.
I tried this experience with my parents, both over 60 and not technical affine and both without games experience.
How does the game work?
You are a photographer for the National Geographic Magazine and can choose between Machu Picchu and Antarctica. Your mission is to take photos.
In Machu Picchu, you can explore three different sites and be guided by a voice narrator to access more information. You navigate by teleporting in the closed area you’re able to explore.
The voice narrator could be more extensive and gives you mostly information about what to do next or where you can go. But as you take photographs, which have to match historical ones given to you, some basics about the sites are explained.
By tracing lines, you can transform the ruins into their former presence. You investigate those reconstructions for ancient artefacts and take photos of those.
In Antarctica, you are more active and get more into an “explorer mode”. You steer quite realistically a kayak through the ice and see multiple animals. The voice-over always tells you something about them.
By ice climbing, you can not only see a whale, get to a plateau but also challenge yourself.
The Experience
Unfortunately, my parents could not unlock the feature of making photographs and reconstruct sites, but they enjoyed the surroundings and the walking so much that it didn’t matter.
If they did the experience on their own, they would follow the narrator. In my case, I streamed the experience and told them what they could do. I did not try to lead them to all the narrations but just a few so they get what it is about.
In Antarctica, my stepdad, who had a hard time navigating the kayak, enjoyed the ice climbing experience very much, and it was hard to stop him from using the headset.
That showed the different kinds of user brilliantly. He needed the action, a task to fulfil, and the experience gave him the chance to. My mother, on the other side, was already overwhelmed by locations. Both got what they needed to enjoy the experience.
The Outcome
Even as my family didn’t get the game part of the experience, the relatively easy handling and well done locations make it an amazing experience.
I didn’t imagine my parents liking VR, but the possibility of standing in a place you had never seen before made them hyper about VR. They immediately understood why it is perfect for education, work and gaming.
Even as I wish the voice narrator would have the option of more extensive information, its briefness allows it also to be used by kids, I think. I didn’t try it, but the animals in Antarctica and the feeling of exploring should be fun for kids.
In Conclusion
There are more impressive or more educational experiences to present to your friends, but so far, these are the perfect ones to make sure everyone is excited about VR, and no one gets sick.
The most important thing in my eyes is to make the first VR experience an exciting one, without sickness, which makes you want to experience more, even if you don’t wear a headset.
I am very interested in what you recommend to introduce people to VR and what your experiences were. Please feel free to comment or write to me.
You can read this article as well in german on my website www.konstantin-schraps.de
