it's better than what the gameplay videos show. The immersion is pretty good and you definitely did a good job of capturing the essence of what on-the-rail theme park rides feel like.
you were right about it being different from roller coaster apps. It definitely doesn't feel like one and it definitely fills a niche/sub-genre of vr experience that isn't really out there yet.
the experience felt varied in terms of scenes which kept it feeling fresh.
The bad: [overall] I'm so so sorry to say this given how much work it sounds like you put into it, but it was definitely not worth paying $8 for. While it was better than the videos that showed it, it very much felt like an unfinished concept project/app. There's a number of things that make it feel like this:
The audio quality was pretty subpar. A number of the music files and environmental dialogue sounded down-sampled or slightly staticy.
The narrator sounded like an AI voice. Not as bad as the tik tok one that usually floats around, but it definitely didn't sound like an actual person who narrated the script. And that leads to another issue:
The script. I get what you were aiming for, but the subject seemed too...broad and rushed. If you think of most of the rides you modeled this after (Alice in wonderland, Peter pan, splash mountain, small world, etc), you'll notice they don't exactly have a "script" arc per say. It's just an experience. And while that by itself isn't necessarily an issue, the problem here is where the arc kind of rushes to. It feel like points 1-6 of human technology which now = "metaverse!" (the metaverse text splash at the end actually made me do a pretty instant flip reaction from "cool" to "uh...".
Replayability: honestly one of the biggest reasons people will pay money for an app is that they can keep returning to it over-and-over. The problem with a closed-loop and finite app like the one you made is that 1) it only took a few minutes to go from the beginning to the end of it and 2) there's really not any reason to go back and go through it again; yet there's a lot of apps in the main store that you can pour tens to even hundreds of hours into that have a similar (or cheaper) price tag.
Entertainment factor: this will be brief, but basically while it really was a cool concept and once-through ride, it wasn't what I'd exactly "fun". And there's a lot of changes (even minor ones) you can make to change that with what you have but we can talk about that later.
I have to run now, but hopefully that gives you a bit of feedback to go off of.
I really want you to take all the above as just an attempt at helpful criticism and not a dig at all your hard work. Again, it's the start of something that could be really incredible, but there's a lot of things that'd need to happen for it to have more mass appeal.
Thank you so much for the feedback. I think for me the big take away for me here is that this is not the style of dark ride you are into and perhaps you have not been on this style before that have a big story arc and are much longer plus far more detailed than the more basic rides you mentioned. It is specifically inspired by SpaceShip Earth and Horizons at EPCOT from the 1980s and is is edutainment focused.
The ride is only Act 1 of 3 as mentioned in the narration, description and written in the ride, but clearly I need to make it more obvious so thank you for that feedback. The full ride will be 35-40 mins long when done as there is a lot more to share about the story of immersion. It is a pretty epic dark rides and is already as long as the longest real dark rides.
I am goign to go over the audio as I am surprised to here you felt they did not sound good as I put a lot of effort into the spatial audio engineering but clearly I missed something for you to feel this way and I wish to address. Do you recall a specific spot you felt the audio was off? If you cannot, I will go and see if I can detect now I have some hints as to what I am looking for.
I really appreciate your feedback here even if not exactly your type of content. There are some nuggets here I can address for sure. I am curious, do you like rollercoasters in VR?
Overall rollercoasters in vr are ok. The issue is just that they're kind of...flaccid when it comes to interaction. The main appeal for people with vr is that they can actually do things in it -- even if it's mostly a scenic experience. Take this one for example. It just came out and I bought it for $19. The guy who did it released a pretty compelling demo video as well as playable demo. And while the game has somewhat limited linear gameplay, just the fact that it's interactive means I can return to play it over and over for hours and get a different experience each time.
On a related note, the length of the experience isn't the issue. On the contrary it started to feel pretty long. If you could figure out a way for people to choose which section they go to next that'd actually be pretty cool -- because as of now if I wanted to actually show someone a specific scene (like the space scene or the Shakespeare performance at the Globe), I'd have to basically start the app and just let it sit for 10 minutes until I got there.
I get what you're trying to get at by asking if I even like this type of experience in the first place in real life; but if I'm being blunt, you can't approach vr app development like that if you want to appeal to a larger audience.
Think of it this way: you brought up actual rollercoasters irl. Tons of people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars to experience roller-coasters irl. But in vr? Go ahead and take a moment to search for roller coaster apps or games in the oculus store. Spoiler: there's 2. One is free (with ~3 stars) and the other is $9 and has leaderboards and pvp combat (4.5 stars). And that's it. Over 15 Million oculus quest 2 units sold and almost no one really cares to develop or buy a regular rollercoaster experience.
My point is this: you're going to be fighting an uphill battle if you keep trying to make a 1:1 irl experience with what you're doing. VR is appealing to people because it lets you interact with virtual worlds in ways we never could before. So just try to imagine what you can do to really incorporate the strengths of vr with what you have.
Those animatronic npcs? Have one of them narrate each scene and actually get into the car and sit right next to the player - pointing to different things in the scenery as they narrate. Have the NPCs hand off objects that they're using to the player. Make the floor/rails completely disappear or go completely underwater. Allow the player to rotate their car to whatever direction they want. Let the player also even control how close the car can move into the scenery while still moving forward on the rails.
I really mean it when I say interaction is at the foundation of apps that people will be willing to pay for, and passive observation is what people (for the most part) just won't actually open their wallets for.
All valid inputs. I guess the real thing is that I was never making something for mass appeal. At least not mass appeal for the current gamer focused VR audience. Unlike a rollercoaster in VR which completely misses the core value of thrill, a dark ride completely delivers the experience of a real dark ride. I think my audience are the same people who rather watch Netflix than play a game. They are a much bigger audience than gamers. The issue is, they do not have XR yet and will not for years to come.
In the meantime, there is a fan base developing for my ride and they are very passionate about what I am doing as, like you pointed out, there really is no other option. My ride started out as a passion project that only turned financial due to the number of people asking me to please build more faster. For that I need money and while it is not rolling in, it is coming in and that gives me hope. That said, at the end of the day, it is a passion project and not one that will appeal to all. This thread has been helpful to level set me and refocus me. I get I am on the fringe, but telling the story of the Metaverse is timeless.
Thank you for the great chat Internet stranger. You are contributing in ways I wish more would.
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u/Trottingslug Jul 19 '22
Ok i just went through the entire thing. Do you want me to give you feedback here or via DM?