I don't even know where to begin. Before Wednesday's class, my exposure to VR was minimal. I had maybe played with the immersive technology two times beforehand. So, when I found out we'd be spending a whole class playing for VR, I felt like a little kid before Christmas. And, I wasn't disappointed.

Experiences that worked well for me were the spherical ones of nature. For instance, the very first experience my group and I tried was one of the NASA space station. We were “literally” taken to space. It was insane. The earth was so crisp, and the space station felt so real. I felt like I was an astronaut free floating into space. I could turn my head either which way I wanted and the experience responded with no lag. I was, for a lack of better terminology, freaking out (in a good way). One of the biggest things for me was that I knew my body was present in real life but when let's say I would look down to where my lap was, it wasn’t there. It was only the experience. Which, on one hand is amazing but on the other a little unsettling.

Overall, my group and I felt great. Most of us were VR Virgins, so we were on cloud nine. Except, our eyes did feel a little iffy after watching a shark 360 video because it was a little choppy. So, when you moved too slowly, the images didn’t flow seamlessly together. Thankfully, none of us are particularly susceptible to motion sickness, so we didn’t feel nauseous, but I could see how someone could feel sick.

On that note, I want to go more in depth talk about how specific components affected my experience:

Resolution: This is one of the most important parts of the experience. If the resolution is lackluster, then the experience will also be lackluster because it doesn’t feel realistic. Furthermore, if the resolution is subpar, people will probably not feel well.

Sound: Also an important component, especially when it is 3D because it gives you a fully immersive experience. In the same vain as resolution, if the sound isn’t 3D then it makes the experience feel less realistic.

Spherical Vision: In my opinion, this is the only type of experience that should be on VR. I don’t understand the appeal of cylindrical vision because it makes it seem like you were in an unfinished video game.

All in all, I am very excited to keep playing with VR and hope to edit this post once I try DK2 and dabble with different storytelling experiences.