As Alpha Season 4 winds down, I wanted to note some of the things that I saw in experiences that impressed me from a Creator perspective. While I wouldn’t necessarily consider all of these mechanics or assets in my experiences, most of them made me put active thought into how they did it. Please add to the list or comment on mine.
-NFT drops! Receiving a reward in the experience and then being able to claim it in your wallet is awesome. I don’t know how they did that, or if it is available to us yet, but I hope it is soon. I see lots of possibilities for incentivizing play.
-Anime Faces. In several of the games early in the Season, the NPCs had faces that were more detailed. I suspect that they done outside of VE and imported. They definitely added to the atmosphere and theme of the experiences.
-Video streaming. This is my number one request as a Creator. Many of the experiences had streaming, whether to show the tutorial, advertise their brand, or have a trailer for a future experience. I look forward to having access to this capability.
-Voiceovers. Even though it was small, I thought having voice clips for main quest interactions helped with immersion. While it would be onerous to do it for all dialogue, I felt that it was additive to the experience. I look forward to this capability as well.
-Smurf Timer. I thought the “get to the safe space” timer in the Smurf experience was very interesting from a logic perspective. It might be as simple as a timer, asset spawns, and a kill mechanism, but I suspect there is more to it. I appreciate things like this that add immersion to the experience.
-Titan Glide. The gliding in the Attack on Titan experience was very intriguing to me. While the mechanics weren’t seamless, I appreciated how they integrated several different mechanics–angle, fuel, attack–all adding to the experience in a way I hadn’t seen before.
-Blond:ish Co-op. I suspect the mechanics were pretty straightforward for this experience, which is what made it all the more awesome for me. “Work together to overcome an obstacle. Now do it again.” Simple concept, clean execution, and enjoyable experience.
I look forward to seeing your thoughts and examples.