SOMNIACS AG, an award-winning immersive experience company, has announced updates to its Birdly immersive VR experience.
Birdly, a social and interactive attraction that friends, families and strangers can enjoy together, has been improved with updates to the Birdly Wingsuit Racer VR experience. The key upgrade is the addition of a multiplayer mode which allows up to four players to race against each other. This means that players can now compete with their friends and family, or even challenge strangers to a race.
The firm has also added an extended introduction and a new tutorial. Plus, more details have been introduced to the track, such as spectators, more advertising space and dynamic obstacles.
More fun for players and spectators
These changes have been introduced in order to make the Birdly Wingsuit VR experience more immersive and fun, as well as to increase repeatability by adding a competitive element. Furthermore, the company plans to bring in online multiplayer capability later this year.
The updates also add more fun for spectators, with the addition of the “Audience Screen”. Through this, bystanders can enjoy a special view of the game, shown in the style of a sports or racing broadcast on TV. The AI automatically tracks the racing players and follows them using automated cuts and transitions, in order to provide spectacular viewpoints throughout the race.
The picture is then overlaid with traditional sports metrics like position, speed, and time, as well as a mini-map. At the end of the race, this will show the high score, which is also displayed between the race using overview shots of the track as background footage. This new feature will help draw in an audience.
A shared experience
Marko Popovic, operations manager at WeAreVR in Zurich says:
“In Wingsuit Racer, you can throw yourself off the cliff in front of breathtaking scenery and fly through the mountain landscape at high speed. Through the multiplayer mode, you can not only share this unique experience directly, but also challenge each other to crack the high score. This makes the flying experience twice as fun.”
“The new multiplayer mode really gives you the feeling of a head-to-head race and I think the Spectator screen is, in its design, quite unique for an LBE experience,” adds Simon Pfaff, head of content creation at Somniacs.
At the end of last year, the company also launched its new Birdly Insects virtual reality experience. Developed in cooperation with BirdLife Switzerland, this provides a macro-scale adventure for users, translating a grassy landscape into an adventurous jungle.
