If there’s one golden rule in the vast unknown that is VR development right now it’s this; give players choices. Not everything works for everyone, and people will likely need to tinker with your experience to get something that works for them. If you don’t know where to start then Google is here to help with Daydream Elements.
Elements is a pretty interesting piece, covering some of the basics of VR development that many of us have come to be familiar with over the past few years. It showcases six examples of tips and tricks for VR development, complete with the pros and cons for their use.
Three of these are concerned with locomotion. One details teleportation, another showcases smooth movement with restricted peripheral vision, and another shows third-person gameplay.
Interestingly examples of all three of these types of experiences have hit Daydream in the past few months. Teleportation can be seen in the VR port of Layers of Fear, while the excellent Eclipse uses smooth movement. Meanwhile both Lola and the Giant and Along Together both used a third-person camera that followed a main character.
Elsewhere, Elements showscases some UI options. For clicking an app menu there’s a very basic paint application, sort of like a devolved version of Google’s own Tilt Brush on Vive and Rift. Swipe actions get a first-person shooter-like balloon game, and there’s a scene you can explore that shows off Daydream’s lighting techniques that can solve some mobile GPU issues.
Elements is a free app if you want to take a look, though it probably won’t provide much insight to anyone other than VR newbies. It arrives just ahead of some major updates for the platform that will enable new features like casting to TV screens. That update in turn preceeds the arrival of standalone VR headsets that will also support the platform later this year.
