This is my first post in 2016.

Right, well, first off; I am still working on a game. It’s not the same game I was working on the last I made a post though. That game is currently shelved until I finish the one I’m working on. And the one I’m working on is basically an advanced Pong clone, because I wanted to make something for Android. Surprisingly, I’ve learned a lot more about using Unity with mobile platforms and more of the APIs it has.

Regardless, you’re gonna be waiting a little longer for a release. I’m kinda busy sorting out paperwork, which is almost done.

But onto the main topic; Mobile VR.

I recently got a Mobile VR headset, a DESTEK 3D Virtual Reality Headset. I got this one partly because my phone is small, and I prefer the sturdiness of plastic rather than cardboard. Thing is, this isn’t Google Cardboard. It has a NFC sticker on it, but not the QR code the Cardboard app asks for. You can still run it though.

Add it to the other pictures of white guys with VR headsets I guess.

There’s a bunch of VR apps to mess with, but I only messed around with Cardboard and the YouTube apps, along with the Unity Demo App for Cardboard.

It’s not a bad effect, it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to it, so you can get a screen-door effect sometimes. A lot of the apps I looked at required me to stand up and move around to see things, the only stuff for sitting down VR were side-by-side video players. I’ll get to the point with that, it’s kinda shitty. I felt like shit after like 5 minutes and had to lie down.

There’s already plenty of information on why that happens, but I feel not making me stand up in the middle of my room, spinning around like a spastic; would of helped minimize the nausea I had. I seriously hope those developing apps don’t have the intention of designing them in ways that fucks with people’s sense of balance or world placement. Maybe they’ll get the message after a few videos of people smashing into their living room objects.

As for the headset itself (Minus the phone part, obviously), it’s mostly comfortable. That is providing you don’t wear glasses like me. In that case, expect them to become embedded into the sides of your nose. To be fair, it did come with extra padding, and I used that to ease up on that issue, but be fair warned regardless. The lenses are fine, mostly clear. There is a weird blurring, but I’m not sure if that’s the lenses, my glasses being dirty, or my poor eyesight without my glasses.

So in general, I like the idea of VR, but less like the idea of people not taking into account how people’s bodies react to it. Then again, Mobile VR and something like the Rift or Vive are very different machines. If you want to develop the mobile stuff, consider slower things where you turn have to turn around as much. But holy Hell does this stuff make my stomach turn. I’ll keep at it to see if my body can become accustomed to it and not be sick as a dog after minutes, but fuck man.

Either way, if you wanna buy into it, Google Cardboard is cheap and supports any phone/tablet display from 4.7″ to 6″, with some of them going larger.

Now I just need to stop goofing around and finish these things I start.

-Adam