Mixed Reality Real Time Strategy Game

Abstract

Making video games in Virtual Reality (VR) is a fairly new and undeveloped territory and there are a lot of new problems that arise when developers step into the world of VR. The goal of this project is to create a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game in Mixed Reality (MR) and to tackle any problems that may arise. Mixed reality is VR but with real life elements incorporated in the virtual world. During development the VR headset used is an Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2). To handle the input from the users a Leap Motion controller is used and the game itself will be made in the game engine Unreal Engine 4. An RTS game was created where the player is placed in front of a virtual table inside a virtual room. The game field, or game world, is then projected on the table much like a board game. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is constructed around the player inside this VR room. A simple menu connected to the player’s hand was created for unit production and main menus were placed on banners around the room. There are three kinds of units in the game, a musketeer, a soldier and a mortar. The focus of the project was to minimize cybersickness and at the same time create an innovative input system for VR. Most of the problems that surfaced were due to the lack of support for a small world inside a larger one, impairing both the scale of which the player sees the models and the navigation mesh for the AI. It was essential to have the two separate worlds, the room and the table, to get the board game feeling sought after, so these problems had to be solved.