VR Tower Defenders: making the WebVR game

[mozfest-bot]

[ UUID ] 4bdd7d4c-2484-4735-9e17-a7011ef5a808

[ Session Name ] VR Tower Defenders: making the WebVR game [ Primary Space ] Web Literacy [ Secondary Space ] Digital Inclusion

[ Submitter's Name ] Thomas Balouet [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] [ Submitter's Github ] tbalouet, diekus, utopiah

[ Additional facilitators ] Diego González,Fabien Benetou

What will happen in your session?

During the session, the participants will be able to play a WebVR game made in collaboration between WebVR aficionados Diego González, Fabien Benetou and Thomas Balouet. The game will be developed using the A-Frame framework, and it will feature innovative capabilities of VR experiences enabled through a browser: responsive gameplay and design, 3D and Virtual Reality display, networked communication, web components, immersive interactions. Participants will also be invited to customize the game, either by creating their own 3D models to integrate in the game (using different set of creation tools on desktop or in VR), or by developing their own game components (by remixing existing A-Frame components we’ll have developed).

What is the goal or outcome of your session?

The purpose of this session is to showcase today’s possibilities when combining the Web and VR. We want people to experiment by themselves that the Web isn’t just 2D pages but can also be immersive. We also want to showcase that "cross-device" concepts also work in WebVR, by making people to play together on different devices (computer/Gear VR/Oculus Rift/HTC Vive headsets). Finally we want to show them that the Web is easy to remix, by making them customize their experience.

If your session requires additional materials or electronic equipment, please outline your needs.

We will try to bring multiple Gear VR headsets, but to showcase the responsiveness of the app through devices, it would be cool to be able to have a couple of Oculus Rift / HTC Vive setups.

Time needed

90 mins

[flukeout]

Hello @tbalouet @diekus and @utopiah - thanks for submitting your session! I have a question about the travel stipend. We only have a few of them to give away and wonder if it would be at all possible for you to attend the festival without it. If not, would you need a travel stipend for all 3 facilitators? Let us know, thanks very much!

I can check with the A-frame team here at mozilla to see if we would be able to get any HTC Vive headsets & controllers.

[tbalouet]

Hi! Sorry I thought of precising and then forgot. For the stipend only @utopiah and I would need it, as @diekus is London based (ourselves are Bruxelles (BE) and Lille (FR) based). If it's too difficult for Mozilla to take care of it, and I perfectly understand that there's lot of participants coming from further away, it was discussed to come by our own means, or eventually to get Samsung's help through diekus. So if it's possible the better, otherwise we'll manage. We really want to be part of this cool event!

[flukeout]

Hello @tbalouet - is there a playable version of the game available online somewhere that we can try? Thanks!

[Utopiah]

Hi @flukeout,

Please find herer a short gif http://vatelier.net/MyDemo/MozFest2017/mozfest_red.gif of a visual preview.

If you really want here is https://jsbin.com/qurize/edit?html the link. You can even check a preview using the Output option but... I really don't recommend it at that stage except if you have a monster machine (e.g NVIDIA Titan and fiber connection ;)

The next steps we would focus on would be :

updating it using the latest components especially networking,

rethinking the gameplay (it works, having win/loss conditions, but it's

not that fun in its current state)

improving the visuals

making it a Glitch with pedagogical comments and steps, etc

making the forked Glitch-es from participant easy to share back on

social networks (i.e. with image and text preview for Facebook and Twitter)

Cheers, Fabien.

[flukeout]

Hey @Utopiah - unfortunately we will not be able to accept your session proposal at this year's festival in our space. We had so many submissions and were just unable to schedule in everything that we wanted. I ran a session last year related to game I made, and I also found it very hard to really dive into creating anything useful or meaningful with the participants within the span of a session. I think your proposal would work well for a longer hackathon or game jam, however, but I don't think our space is suited for that this year. Thanks again for your time and understanding.

[EPIKhub]

I'll add our label to put a hold on this for our final deliberation

[tbalouet]

Thanks @EPIKhub! We're really willing to be part of the MozFest! Please let us know if there's any further information we could give to help you make your decision!

[EPIKhub]

@tbalouet your session has been accepted into the youth zone, also awarded to you is 1 stipend, please reach out to other funding options for your co-facilitators

[tbalouet]

That's a really great news Dorine! Thanks for accepting us! For the stipend one of us is based in London, so all good, the two others are based in Lille (France) and Brussels (Belgium). One of us could find a place to stay in London so would eventually just need transportation mean, the other is looking for something similar, should be fixed by mid-september.

What would be the next discussion steps with you?

Cheers and thanks again!

[EPIKhub]

@tbalouet when you confirm your details with the Mozilla travel team you can opt to pay extra for 1 person to have a double twin room, I think its like £20 ish that might help you a bit

[EPIKhub]

@tbalouet - From a logistics side of things please plan to be at the festival from FRIDAY 27th Oct 9am as you are part of our Youth Zone VR lab.

[tbalouet]

Hi @EPIKhub, thanks again for trusting us and accepting us into the Youth Zone! We made some great progress on the game already at a VR Painting Jam this weekend: https://twitter.com/thomasbalou/status/906565164107014152 https://twitter.com/utopiah/status/906577836613554176

Also we were wondering what the agenda would be like for presenting our project and engage people to play/remix/customize it? Will it be an everyday session like a fixed place to do demos or a timed session? Question is also to get to know how we'll organize ourselves to get to see the rest of MozFest projects and sessions.

Cheers and thanks for any info you could give us!

[EPIKhub]

@tbalouet more info to follow via email within the next 2 weeks :)

[gbaman]

@tbalouet to confirm, you are bringing all the hardware you need for your session with you? Attendees won't need their own computer etc to take part?

[tbalouet]

Hi @gbaman! As our experience will be available through any device, it would be good if attendees could bring their PC and mobile phones along, even if it's not required. What we'd like to propose is for people to dig into the code to remix the game at their liking.

We'll provide the basics (some VR HMDs and laptops of our own) so even if they have nothing they will be able to try the experience, but if they want to dip their toes a bit more, would be great if they had hardware.

Also we were wondering if you guys would have a spare computer with the following requirements to lend us for the event:

Graphics Card	NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 470 or greater
Alternative Graphics Card	NVIDIA GTX 960 4GB / AMD Radeon R9 290 or greater
CPU	Intel i3-6100 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200, FX4350 or greater
Memory	8GB+ RAM
Video Output	Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
USB Ports	1x USB 3.0 port, plus 2x USB 2.0 ports
OS	Windows 8.1 or newer

Thanks!

[EPIKhub]

@tbalouet the VR lab will have as a mininum

1 HTC Vive unit 1 Paired Laptop; GeForce GTX970 M, i7-4720HQ 2.6 GHz 10 Google VR cardboard headsets

[gbaman]

@tbalouet note that given this is YouthZone, it is very difficult to assume the majority young people attending your session will have laptops and even phones. So we would suggest planning your session to assume none of them have either, but having a plan as well for those that do.

Note that the x10 Google VR cardboard headsets that @EPIKhub mentioned are just the cardboard/lens parts and do not include devices inside.

[tbalouet]

OK, @EPIKhub it will be perfect if we can have this gear during the session. Samsung UK (through @diekus) should be providing mobiles + gear HMDs, plus an Oculus CV1. With a couple of our own laptop, should be good to do demos. Thanks!

[tbalouet]

Hi @EPIKhub! Just thought of this afterwards, but wondering if it'll be possible to get a screen (PC screen or TV screen) big enough to showcase the experience to people who are outside of it? Also, we didn't have a feedback on last Sunday's call that we couldn't attend. Are there more information on session's length and confirmation on the date? Thanks!

[EPIKhub]

@tbalouet the VR Lab is being setup for SAT only, the gear mentioned wotn be available on SUN - We have schedueld you for a AM SAT slot if you plan to use our gear. Else you will have to bring your own for a SUN slot.

[tbalouet]

Thanks, yes if possible I'd rather do it on Sunday. Salvador de la Puente is lending us a VR kit that we can use on Sunday, plus we should have some gear VR so it should be enough for the demo, and we'll be two participators to handle the workshop, so easier. Thank you!