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“I grew up in that generation that was promised [virtual reality], along with hoverboards,” said Josh Farkas, a former childrens' book illustrator and current strategist at Cubicle Ninjas.
The seven-year-old, 30-person branding, technology, and design firm based in suburban Glen Ellyn may finally be able to make that happen. At least part of it.
Cubicle Ninjas boasts a diverse portfolio, including work for Discover and other international clients, but its latest project, an Oculus Rift demo called Guided Meditation, came from taking light-hearted customer suggestions about taking a vacation seriously.
[ibimage==41811==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-right]Built with a mix of 3D programs, Unity3D, and the Oculus SDK, Guided Meditation includes four separate experiences: Costa Del Sol, Yoskua Garden, Birchnut Forest, and Cosmo Canyon. The highly detailed binaural audio instills psychological calm with time-tested phrasing that may feel familiar to practitioners of progressive relaxation, hypnotherapy, or certain meditation traditions.
“The biggest challenge was spending the time to learn what works in this medium,” Farkas said. “We began by spending months trying small iterative experiences until we landed on a very simple, yet powerful mix of travel meets meditation. But we created everything from a firefighter simulator, to interactive MC Esher worlds, to a baby simulation, and beyond. What works in VR is still very much a question everyone will be addressing for many, many years. At the moment there isn't a default control mechanism for the Oculus Rift, so we spent weeks trying ideas, reducing complexity until we found something most first time users could do easily. Now we have a one button app.”
The Cubicle Ninjas' are fine-tuning their product from user feedback. “The development kits and tech is young, so getting heavy user feedback from new users is essential. VR developers can become blind to problems such as 'sim sickness,' and these feedback sessions ensured we'd meet the level of polish we were seeking for this vertical slice demo. We had over 100 people's feedback during this process.”
[ibimage==41810==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-left]Guinea pig zero for the original Guided Meditation demo was Palmer Luckey, the creator of the Oculus Rift. “Talk about stage fright,” said Farkas.
Fortunately, Luckey loved it, and the team got lots more support from the larger community surrounding Oculus, whose technology was recently acquired by Facebook.
“What we learned here was that there are interesting challenges in building 3D spaces for relaxation,” said Farkas. “Often they become oddly personal, so having a hut on a hill for example may look neat, but makes someone feel like their private space is violated. We spent weeks providing variation and levels of isolation, allowing users the ability to choose. Choice matters more for space than in any other medium we've seen."
