Today we’re looking at
Beat Saber (2019) and why its most essential design element can be used to make great VR games that have nothing to do with music or rhythm. Today we’re looking at Beat Saber (2019)
and why its most essential design element can be used to make great VR games that have nothing to do with music or rhythm.
You can find the complete video below, or continue reading for an adapted text version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoOeO7S9ehw
More Than Music
Welcome back to another episode of Inside XR Design. Listen, what I am about to say makes no sense. You can call me crazy now, but wait for a moment.Beat Saber doesn’t have rhythm. But the defining characteristic of a rhythm game is not just
music, but also a scoring system that’s based on
timing. Here’s what most people aren’t aware of: The higher the score, the better the timing. Beat Saber doesn’t have any timing component to its scoring system.That’s right. It’s possible to chop the block as it approaches. Or you could hit it at the last second before it goes completely behind you, and in both cases you could
earn the same number of points.
So if Beat Saber scoring isn’t about timing, then how does it work? The scoring system is actually based on motion. The cubes are thrown at you and you’re challenged to swing
broadly or precisely.And while the music in Beat Saberr helps you know when to move, more than a rhythm game… it’s a motion game
.Specifically, the design of Beat Saber is based on a VR design concept that I like calling Instructe So Beat Saber throws these cubes at you and challenges you to swing broadly and precisely
.And while Beat Saber has music that certain helps you know when to move, more than a rhythm game… it’s a motion game
.
Specifically, Beat Saber is built around a VR design concept that I like to call ‘Instructed Motion’, which is when a game asks you to move your body in specific ways.And I’m going to make the case that Instructed Motion is a design concept that can be completely separated from games with music. That is to say: the thing that makes Beat Saber so fun can be used to design great VR games that have nothing to do with music or rhythm
.
Instructed MotionOk so to understand how you can use Instructed Motion in a game that’s not music-based let’s take a look at Until You Fall (2020)although it has an awesome soundtrack from developer Schell Games. This is not remotely a rhythm game––but it uses the same Instruction Motion concept that makes Beat Saber
so much fun.While many VR combat games use physics-based systems that allow players to approach combat with arbitrary motions, Until You Fall is built from the ground up with a notion of how
it wants players to move.And before you say that physics-based VR combat is objectively the better choice in all cases, I want you to consider what Beat Saber
would be like if players could cut blocks in any direction they wanted at all times.Sure, you would still be cutting blocks to music, and yet, it would be significantly harder to find the fun and flow that makes the game feel so great. The patterns used in Beat Saber
encourage players to move fluidly and enjoyably. Combat in VR could also benefit from the use of Instructed Motion, just as Beat Saber does by encouraging players to move in a way that is particularly pleasing. In Until you Fall the Instructed Motion is used to not only make the player move in a specific way but to also make the feel feel a particular way. Unlike a physics-based combat game where you can always decide when to hit back, enemies in
Until You Fall have specific attack phases, and the player must block while it happens, otherwise you risk taking a hit and losing one of just three hit points.Thanks to this approach, the game can adjust the intensity the player feels by varying the number, position, and speed of blocks that must be made. Weak opponents may attack slowly, without too much variety. While strong enemies will send a flurry of attacks that make the player really feel like they’re under pressure.
This gives the developer very precise control over the intensity, challenge, and feeling of each encounter. And it’s that
control that makes Instructed Motion such a useful tool.Dodging is similar to blocking, but instead of raising your weapon to the indicated position, you need to move your whole body out of the way. And this feels completely different from just blocking.
While some VR combat games would let the player ‘dodge’ just by moving their thumbstick to slide out of the way,
Until You Fall uses Instructed Motion to make the act of dodging much more physically engaging.And when it comes to attacking, players can squeeze in hits wherever they can until an enemy’s shield is broken, which then opens an opportunity to deal a bunch of damage.
And while another VR game might have just left this opening for players to hit the enemy as many times as they can,
Until You Fall uses Instruced Motion to ask players to swing in specific ways.Swinging in wide arcs and along particular angles deals the most damage and makes you move in a way that feels really powerful and confident. This is the exact opposite of being attacked. When you get all those combo hits, it feels amazing.