Choosing Children VR
jan - dec 2024
VR adaptation of the live-action, interactive theatre performance, Choosing Children
About
Throughout our work on the live theatre version of this work, we were constantly thinking about the possibilities of the idea and the restrictions brought on by the physical performance. In an effort to fully realise the concept, we decided to create a VR adaptation of the work to allow the user to be fully immersed.This strategy of turning a live performance piece into a digital VR experience had its advantages and its drawbacks. We were able to draw on the source material, adjusting where necessary to better fit the new medium. However, this medium also came with its own drawbacks, such as the limited amount of time you can expect a user to sit with the headset before experiencing some discomfort. This led to some difficult decisions on how to slim down the experience and reduce the amount of friction for the user.
This also informed our use of hand tracking. We knew we wanted some user agency and choice, this matches the choices users were able to make in the live piece and also takes advantage of the interactive medium. However we wanted to keep the interaction points as minimal and intuitive as possible. To this effect, simple pinch and poke controls are used to manipulate the objects in the scene.