VRenity

Lead Designer here, so rather than glazing the game I made, it seems like a good place to give some tips for using this app, along with known issues.   VRenity is all about this AI companion named Nerdle, powered by Chat-GPT. He will talk to you, listen, and ask questions, all with the goal of brightening your day. The experience is so open ended that we don't have a clear idea of what conversations people want to have with an AI companion, so if you want to help with feedback, there's a Discord, or you can use the Community Hub on Steam. ----------------------------- How to experience VRenity ----------------------------- VRenity has 5 main locations, and you move to them either by clicking a Number Button on a keyboard if it's the PC version, or tapping your left Wristwatch with your right hand if it's in VR. 1. VRenity Treehouse - A place for talking to Nerdle about various helpful topics. 2. Soundbath - Here you really want over-ear headphones for some spatialized 8D audio. 3. Teleport to Tranquility - Pull up a list of orbs to portal to. Nerdle will ask light questions. 4. Trailblazer - Ride along with Gus the horse along a mountain trail captured by the VRenity team. To have guided conversations in the Treehouse level, it's useful to teleport to the various landmarks, where Nerdle will focus on different topics. --The Gazebo on the right will focus on meditation. --The Hot Tub will go over progressive muscle relaxation therapy. (long instructions mean a long AI wait time) --The upper Treehouse will ask to play word games or collaborative story telling. --The Gazebo on the left is a place for philosophy and introspection. --Finally, if you leave the central Couch and return, Nerdle will give tips on quitting bad habits. ---------------------------- Known Issues 12-13-2024 ---------------------------- The VR version only works with a Quest 2+, because it exclusively uses hand-tracking. Sorry to other headset owners, we certainly could have added controller support, but ran out of time. To launch in VR, it’s best to be wearing the Quest headset already, then launching into OpenXR mode. This should skip the mode-select screen, and put you right into the Treehouse, skipping the selection screen. If you are stuck on the mode select screen, it won’t let you launch VR mode unless it detects you are wearing the headset. Annoying, and we didn’t find an easy fix. In VR there is automatic voice activation, so an ideal play location does not have a lot of external sound, and no people or pets talking to you. The AI can activate if you cough or bang the table, and it's an ongoing goal to avoid those false activations. On PC, the camera was intended to move when you simply move the mouse, but a bug is making it so you have to click and drag to move the camera. This makes it easier to accidentally click on teleport hotspots. There's also a glitch that has been fixed with some of the teleport spots in the Treehouse, like the hot tub, where it's harder to leave once you go there. The fix can't be deployed until after the new year, unfortunately. In Teleport to Tranquility, there are like 50 unique environments, but it keeps picking the same 16. This is a bug, so in a future update you’ll get many more worlds to visit. Sometimes, Nerdle takes a long time to compute, and will sit there in silence for like 10+ seconds. This usually means he has a long response coming. If you see the sparkles come off his head, that means he DID hear you, and if he goes silent, might be running into internet issues as his response gets downloaded. Trimming this time is a key priority, but requires some major engineering changes. We really should have added a longer "progress bar" so you know he didn't miss the last thing you said. Nerdle (the AI) will sometimes repeat a recent response when you change locations. I just interrupt him at that point, but this bug has not been easy to track down. When changing locations in Teleport to Tranquility, Nerdle will wait 5-10 seconds, then ask an "icebreaker" question. This was very close to being improved before launch, because it can derail previous conversations with useless new topic changes.

VRenity has a fresh and new approach to interact with AI and technology. The spaces really have a calming atmosphere, are well thought out and designed so people with any skill or comfort level can pick up and enjoy. Every session is unique with regards to interaction with Nerdle - so the "replayability" here is essentially endless. I will be spending more time with the VR side of the program when my PC is fully equipped (you can use the program in regular PC mode or VR).

Ways I've found communicating with AI Companions that were interesting to explore included dream analysis, choose your own adventure type storytelling and learning about what hikes Gus, the virtual horse, recommends. It's a unique approach to the use of AI and look forward to how the AI companions will evolve to be even more human-like as time goes on. As a nature buff this provided a great variety of options. The navigation being hand gestures is a bit of a learning curve, so highly recommend watching the onboarding video.