One of the coolest things we’ve done at Frame is the Imaginarium VR concept store. This was a pop-up space we ran at Enex on Hay St for 8 weeks over the 2017-2018 Christmas holiday season.
The idea of the store was to see if the general public would visit a retail location for VR experiences … and boy did they ever! At the end of the 8 week run over 3,000 people had visited the store – and from a wide demographic; from parents with young children to school groups, age care groups, and people with disabilities.
At the store, we offered a variety of experiences. These included rides on our Mechatron VR system, custom-built networked games on 6 HTC Vives, and a 12 seat VR cinema for checking out 360 video content.
On the Mechatron ride, I was responsible for creating the popular Santa’s Super Sleigh Simulator ride. This was a 5 minute, no-holds-barred, thrill ride down the snow slopes and through ice caverns of the North Pole.
I also designed, worked on, and managed the development of a fun little mobile VR game called Snowmen Attack. The premise of the game is you must defend the presents at your feet from the waves of snowmen trying to steal them by throwing snowballs at them. It was a hit amongst both kids and parents!
The final project I contributed to at the Imaginarium VR store was Elf Help. This is a game played by up to 6 participants who all wear HTC Vive headsets. The premise is it is 10 minutes to midnight and you are an elf on Santa’s workshop jack-in-the-box toy assembly line.
The 6 players face off against each other in 2 groups of 3. Each group member has a single task to do; either pack the jack into the box, wrap the toy on the Wrap-O-Matic 3000, or label and throw the finished present into the back of Santa’s sleigh ready for delivery (It’s how I imagine Amazon warehouses work)
I was mostly responsible for building the elf characters as well as environmental models and level layout. I also contributed to overall game design and team management.