'Oculus Rift' and 'Civilization 5'

[Deggial]

This weekend I just learned about the promising new VR attempt 'Oculus Rift'.

Now, while Civ5 is not the type of game, the developers have in mind at the first place, I believe that playing Civ in VR-mode would be awesome. God-like!

Think about it: The game board fills your whole field of vision, you are hovering over the world, commanding your little units. When you turn your head to the left, a new part of the map becomes visible, moving your head "closer" to the map will bring it closer to you. (Of course, there has to be a compfortable hight seperately adjustable, so that your normal sitting possition equals your prefered hight.)

Even more, as there is not so much movement involved as in a first person shooter, the VR-sickness would be way less a problem than in those type of games.

Personally, I would love, love, love(!) this experience!

Please, Firaxis, think about the possibilities!

What about the civfanatics? Would you be interested in this, too?

 

[McGunn]

I think this is a fantastic idea. I just got my Oculus Rift DK2 in the mail. I've never tried to mod Civ5 before. But once I get my fix trying a million games with it, I might try to see if it's possible to get it working on Civ5. I don't think I would ever leave the house if it does work. The only issue is the need to use the mouse and have a cursor in your view. I don't think I would be capable of say adding Kinect support with a virtual hand and arm that works like a mouse, but that would sure make you feel god-like.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

The real advantage of the Oculus is in projecting the image of a virtual 3D world as it would appear to a user/model actually in that space. That is, for use with simulations which the user navigates with an avatar. You think too small! Oculus can do so much more than work with an essentially flat surface. Using a headset like Oculus for a board game like Civilization is just a modified control scheme, just a bunch of button mappings.

All the things you are describing are options that still have to be handled at the game level first; there's no indication there's any code basis for viewing the game field from alternate angles - it's all written in XY coordinates and the graphics probably don't rotate.

After writing the ability to process exploring the Civ world, accessing that just becomes about efficient and intuitive keymappings, which the headset doesn't add much to.