what's going on? - controllers


There was an issue with Index controllers not working properly. As I don't have Index, but I had Knuckles for a while, I thought that Tea For God supports Index controllers. I was wrong. The support was partial.

I reached for OpenVR (SteamVR) API documentation and learned that it would be best to not use legacy input but the proper OpenVR Input system.

Not only Index controller did not start to work but also Vive and WMR stopped. That was because I thought that I may still use legacy input for the other VR systems (there is no native WMR support yet). I was wrong. Again. I didn't find anything in the documentation and what's worse, both Vive and WMR were behind a huge pile of boxes that I currently have in my room (which is also a reason that recently I couldn't work as much as usual on the game). And I was going to the seaside. That was bad timing to modify the input system.

I managed to find WMR headset. Vive is much deeper. But luckily, WMR controllers are... Oculus, in my opinion, has the best controllers right now. I like Knuckles but I prefer Oculus Touch. Vive Wands are enormous and feel weird after a long time working with Oculus Touch. And then there are WMR controllers. If Oculus Touch and Vive Wand had a child, it would be WMR controller. It feels small in hand, but the grip is not analogue, it has both joystick and trackpad, and that circular part that is huge (it has the size after Vive, I guess) but it glows (and I like those lights). But what's import in that is that you may test various input systems with WMR controller. WMR works. Tested it. Index controllers should work now (the problem was an incorrect controller type in binding section). Vive should work too.

I hope that the next time I will be doing something with input, it will be related to the gameplay (I have some ideas for Extension Modules I am now working on and then for the Displays on the hands).

As I just mentioned, Extension Modules are the next thing to be implemented. But... I will get back to it next week. I mean, I will be doing some work this week but because some stuff that's not related to the development, I have to spend more time on finishing that other thing, which means less time on the development.

There's also one more thing I wanted to share here. I am working on this game for a while now. I only managed to play 4x3m for a couple of times. I took Quest to the seaside. There was a lot of space I could use, although Quest limited me to something around 7x5m. Unluckily, it was really windy. The grass was moving, the trees were going crazy. I was loosing tracking every minute. And as I said, I am working on this game for a while now, I read, I heard people saying that it gets better with larger spaces and also asking if the larger spaces will be utilised better. And I had some ideas for zones/rooms designed specifically for larger spaces. But I was not prepared for what I've experienced. Being able to walk 5m long corridor that was also quite wide, was very different to playing in 2x2m space.

There are then two things I want to add (after EXMs):

  1. A zone only for larger spaces. It will be something simple but will be designed with a large space in mind.
  2. Scaling VR to make it possible for people with smaller spaces to experience larger ones (movement won't be 1:1 then but with small ratios it should be fine).

There's also an interesting side effect to the second thing. I have support for tall people but there is nothing for shorter people (which also includes kids). They have to fight robots that sometimes are twice as tall as them. And they have very long arms. What I want to try is to scale the whole world. This means that they will be able to experience the game as if they were bigger but there's something more. If we scale the whole world down, we will have relatively larger play space.

Can't wait to try this out.

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Comments

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very exciting new ideas!  It really does help to get a chance to play your game to get the ideas flowing. I am very interested to see how your new ideas will make a better game!  Keep up the good work!

Currently there is a period in which I will be releasing more builds a bit less often. This is because I am adding core systems and most of that is pretty boring - just making stuff work, adding UI. There will be a few more fun things, like headshots, "open" world. But only when all of that is in, I will be able to focus more on specific ideas and adding them.

Somewhere on the way I want to add a very simple tutorial that explains few mechanics. It will be heavily scripted (and optional).

Can't wait to test the latest build. Love what you are doing, keep it up! Exploring time and space in a truly meta-meta way.