Battle Magic, VR Game Case Study

-->

VR Game Case Study

In partnership with Extra Axis

watch game trailer

A few years ago we developed the Wild West-styled VR shooter RevolVR3, which is a Top-3 title in 100+ LBE parks around the world.

Never Bored is an Estonia-based game publisher. This is our second collaboration with them.

Challenge

Initially, Never Bored came to us with an idea to create a modern VR shooter for LBE parks. The game needed to be:

Fast-paced

so that VR arcades could enjoy high through-put

Non-violent

set in a magical environment that would appeal to and attract a younger audience

Active

so that players could move around and have more interaction with each other

Keeping these requirements in mind, we started working on the lore, gameplay and design.

Concept

We started with the lore creation, and developed a document with detailed descriptions of the magic world for the game.

During all stages of work, we used the document as reference – to make sure everything we created was in line with the game plot.

The world of anthropomorphic animals

Races: rodents, predators, birds, ungulates

Aesthetically, rodents have a resemblance to Asian civilizations (Japan and China), with nonhierarchic values.

The ungulates are like the ancient Near Eastern civilizations: Egypt, the Hittites, the Canaanites. Their society values esoteric knowledge.

Battle Magic is a classic deathmatch type game

Players’ ultimate goal is to eliminate other players as many times as they can

At the end of each session, you see statistics on how well you did

If you get shot down, you respawn in five seconds

Schools

All the battles take place in a magic school, and you can choose one of the classes. All of them have their superpowers and winning strategies: you can play Battle Magic several times to experience all of them!

Birds

Shoot straight and knows how to hide well

Rodents

Fast and unpredictable: you’ll never know how they attack their enemies

Ungulates

Awesome at spell casting

Predators

Dangerous at both close and middle distances

Attacking

Players use magic wands to draw runes and cast spells against each other

There are 15 spells in the game: six for attacking, four class-specific ones and three protection spells.

If you want to avoid being attacked, you need to jump, bend and hide behind an ambush. If you want to be successful in your attacks, be creative!

Fireball

Water arrow

Rock

Tornado

Weightlessness

Meteor

Thunderstorm

Rainbow attack

We created three levels taking place in three different virtual locations

Castle

Library

Factory

If you want to become the best, you have to fly and jump between blocks instead of waiting for the right moment to move.

Magic wands

There is a special wand design for each school of magic. Each wand is unique and conveys the specifics of the school.

Game design

Before designing the levels, we created the so-called gray-box testing session: the one without any design to use for gameplay testing.

The characters possess their skills and powers, but the locations are just gray cubes indicating places to hide and move between.

This solution helps to save resources for corrections and guarantees that the final gameplay levels are exciting.

Features

Low Learning Curve

At the start of the game, players are offered a short instruction that does not require an operator. The tutorial will educate players on what spells to use and what movements are available.

Flexible Players Team

You can launch Battle Magic for any number of players, but multiplayer mode is available for groups from 2 to 6 people.

Technical Peculiarities

The biggest challenge was to ensure the game could be played via different LBE networks. All of them have different sets of features, such as a number of operating stuff or necessity for pre-game instructions.

Local For Each Session

One player becomes a host and others join their game. Thanks to this, there’s no need to create a private server.

Communication

During the gaming sessions players can talk with each other using a voice chat.

Simple User Interface

The player can enter his name, create or join a server, choose game round length (9, 12 or 15 minutes), choose leading hand, skip tutorial or replay the game.

Testing

The most exciting part of the development process was the testing

To find the bugs and make it entertaining, we launched a corporate Battle Magic tournament!

We had 23 participants, the winning result was 51 kills with 21 deaths.

Game Trailer