Welcome to our weekly feature where we ask some of the industry’s leading developers and personalities 20 questions.

This week we have a special feature where all 3 of the Riftmax crew give their answers.

State Your Names:

M – Mike “Stryker” Armstrong

C – Caine

B – Bilago

What is your current Job / Role ?

M -Lead Developer, Riftmax

C– Riftmax Developer

B – Riftmax Developer

What are you most famous for ?

M – I don’t think I’m famous for anything yet, but I like to keep that door open.

C – I’m not famous for anything as far as I’m aware!

B – Oculus Service Manager / VR Game Manager

What is currently on the desk in front of you ?

M – My 27″ 3d vision monitor, keyboard, mouse, and just to the right of that a slightly disorganized heap of VR equipment and computer peripherals (I recently moved)

C – Just a laptop

B – Laptop, Desktop and 4 monitors

What was your first VR experience ?

M – Titans of Space by Drash.

C – Riftcoaster

B – Magic Carpet Ride – Disney Quest

Did you feel any sim sickness or do you ever feel any sim sickness ?

M – One time I played Half Life 2 VR in the DK1 standing up for about 4 hours straight. I felt like I was in a poorly optimized VR experience for about a day and a half after that. I don’t think I had it configured right.

C – Yes, still do a bit.

B – Yes, usually when looking behind while moving forward or backwards for some reason

What’s the longest amount of time you have spent in VR in one play session ?

M – I think I spent about 8 hours in Riftmax on karaoke night once. It kept getting weirder and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave.

C– ~2 hours

B – 4 hours or more

What’s the strangest experience you have had with VR ?

M – I’ve tried to fall asleep in a couple experiences in order to wake up and be unaware of my surroundings or create a sort of lucid dream in VR. It actually kind of worked a couple times.

C – Seeing some of the glitches play out in real time in Riftmax

B – Watching players do inappropriate things to other avatars with the use of their Hydras in Riftmax

What’s the funniest experience you have had with VR ?

M – One of the first karaoke nights that Tyler Roach was hosting and he got lost in cyberspace somewhere while everyone was messing with him on stage. He just kept singing and singing, having no idea of the hilarity going on around him. It was hilarious but I also felt bad for him. He was stuck in RPC hell to all of our enjoyment.

C – Describing what I was seeing in VR to friends and pointing to things as if they could see them too.

B – Cyberspace!

What game or hardware device are you currently working on ?

M – Riftmax

C – Riftmax

B – Riftmax

Do you have a release date in mind for your project ?

M – It will never be finished, although I do expect it to reach an official 1.0 version number by CV1 release.

C – We’ll continue to keep it available for free and improve it as much as we can

B – Releases never end!

What is the biggest surprise you have had since you started to work in VR ?

M – How quickly any sort of normal lifestyle can disappear

C – That I’m not immune to jump scares

B – The number of bugs/glitches VR has revealed in 3d Environments.

If you could only choose one game from your childhood to be remade for VR what would it be ?

M – Madden. or an HD multiplayer Tecmo Bowl

C – The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES)

B – Ghosts and Goblins…. ha ha

Besides games what do you think will be the most useful application for VR ?

M – Education. I could easily see schools being completely held in VR. VR will revolutionize the classroom, and I could see it being used very effectively as a replacement for the classroom in many of these online colleges that cost so much. Multiplayer of course.

C – Communication apps.

B – Tourism

What advice would you give to people on how to get into VR development ?

M – Figure out what your strengths are in development by wearing all the hats. Unity is a great engine to start out on, look at the example project to see how things work together. Check out tutorials on YouTube, that way you can see everything they are doing as they describe it. The Internet is your vast resource, most of the questions you have now were asked the same way by someone in the recent past. If you are already a developer, go on the OculusVR forums and download the latest SDK or send a message to someone that may be looking for help.

C – Start tinkering with Unity or UE4, or volunteer to help out on work in progress projects that you like.

B – Volunteer your information, go to your local VR Meetups, be active on the community boards, and don’t be afraid to admit you need assistance!

What is your favorite VR related movie ?

M – The Matrix

C – The Matrix

B – Caine Beat me to this one, but I will agree 100% – The Matrix

If you had a crystal ball and could see 10 years into the future what developments in VR do you think will have happened?

M – The latency issues have all been worked out, and VR is owned by the majority of households. The HMD is still the preferred device, but the FOV will be big enough to engulf your peripheral vision completely, and eye tracking will be standard. A new operating system or more likely something like the Steam Box will probably come along and become the standard machine to run VR on, but we still need the latest graphics cards and peripherals to be ahead of the game. You will be able to choose from something like multiple tracking cameras (cheapest), full body suits (most accurate), or sensors that you can easily place on your body to track yourself. Everything will be wireless, including charging when you’re done. There will be countless ways to escape reality using VR, but there will also be support groups for addicts. People will gravitate towards the metaverse and having a VR persona that travels with them in VR and once the metaverse takes shape it will grow as fast and be as real to society as the Internet was. In ten years it will be taking shape.

C – The first steps to move beyond hmd’s.

B – small profile HMD’s the size of sunglasses with resolution that is on par with real life vision.

Outside of VR what do you do to relax ?

M – Try to do things outside once and a while, go to the movie theater (guess I can’t get enough)

C – Read

B – Record Music

What’s your current favorite VR experience that you have not developed your self ?

M – Lunar Flight, Sightline The Chair, Titans of Space. Sorry the list goes on

C – Asunder: Earthbound

B – Titans of Space

Sum up how you feel about Virtual Reality in 6 words or less ?

M – The future is here, finally

C – For the first time, within reach.

B – We’re the pioneers of the holodeck

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