Creative & Experimental Research · Georgia Tech · 2016–2017

ARES

An experimental VR thriller that used narrative attention and scenography to guide users through impossible-space natural locomotion.

My RoleGame Designer · Developer · VR UX Designer

ContextJanet Murray · Oculus Pioneers · Georgia Tech

MethodsResearch-through-Design · User Study

Recognition2nd Place · CHI Student Game Competition 2017

01 · Research-through-Design Problem

Room-scale VR offers natural walking, but the tracked physical space is much smaller than the story world.

ARES emerged from a Georgia Tech course led by Janet Murray during the Oculus Pioneers period. Our team explored “impossible spaces”: virtual rooms that reuse and transform the same physical tracked area so that a user can keep walking naturally through an environment that appears much larger than the real room.

Can narrative attention help hide spatial transformations well enough that impossible-space locomotion supports presence rather than exposing the trick?

02 · My Contribution

Narrative design, development, and VR interaction design within a collaborative student research team.

I worked as a game designer, developer, and VR UX designer within the ARES team under Janet Murray’s guidance. My specific research interest centered on using narrative direction and scenography to guide attention so that environmental changes could occur outside the participant’s focus.

My role

Game Designer · Developer · VR UX Designer. ARES was collaborative; I do not present it as a solo build. My contribution connected interactive narrative, spatial design, and the locomotion technique.

03 · Design Technique

Narrative cues helped direct attention while the virtual architecture changed around the participant.

Instead of treating impossible-space locomotion as only a geometric problem, the project used dramatic pacing, sight lines, environmental framing, and narrative events to influence where users looked. That attention management created opportunities to reuse the same physical room for different virtual spaces without requiring teleportation as the primary movement model.

Wireframes for the ARES impossible-spaces VR environment — The team planned overlapping virtual rooms around the available tracked physical space.

Rendered ARES virtual environment — The final environment used scenography and narrative direction alongside impossible-space locomotion.

04 · Evaluation

The project was tested with users and developed into a multi-publication research trajectory.

ARES was evaluated through user testing as part of the broader research program. The project was presented at CHI and IEEE VR, and the related Bauhaus scenography work further examined how virtual scenography shaped the experience and sense of presence.

2017CHI Student Game CompetitionARES received second place in the CHI Student Game Competition.

3+Scholarly outputsCHI EA, IEEE VR, VSMM / Virtual Creativity work grew from the project.

TeamCollaborative buildThe project was developed under Janet Murray’s guidance during the Oculus Pioneers period.

05 · Demo

The prototype in motion.