Recently, I started watching one of the everlasting classics in fiction — Star Trek. So I also decided to give the VR game — Star Trek: Bridge crew a try. I’ve heard predominantly positive feedback so my expectations were quite high. Also, the game UI is almost entirely diegetic allowing the player to fully immerse into the experience.

Diegetic vs. Spatial UI elements

When I start testing a new VR game I avoid watching videos of the game play in order to make an objective evaluation of the usability. In the case of Star Trek: Bridge crew what I found challenging was interaction with the spatial UI elements although they were very few. The interaction with the diegetic UI elements on the other side felt natural and easy to get.

Starting the first single player mission in the role of the crew captain, I was eager to test the voice command mode of the game but for some reason it didn’t work. Switching it off though, I could not figure out how to give directions to my crew. I clicked through all 8 available buttons in the game but they had a different purpose. Five minutes later frantically pressing the hardware buttons I unintentionally pressed the upper part of the touch pad and a holographic menu appeared in front of me allowing me to choose among several commands.

Captain: interaction with the crew

Great! So far, so good but immediately after that I had to give directions to the Helm of the ship. This specific direction was not part of the choices on the holographic menu. Bummer… I got out of the game and watched a video to learn how to interact with the spatial UI elements. It turned out that I could switch between communication panels with crew members by simply rotating my head left and right.

Captain: communication panels with the crew

I suppose that I would have never bumped into this problem if I was able to use the voice command system. Still, this experience showed how unnatural spatial UI feels in VR because one has to learn how to use the controllers to interact with it. While in the case of diegetic UI the user interacts via familiar patterns — if there is a button you can press it.

Designing a natural touch

Let’s dig more into the design of the diegetic interactions. One core issue for VR is that there is no feeling of touch, thus users find it hard to identify if they have actually pressed a button or hovered above it. In Bridge Crew, this issue is resolved in a phenomenal way. When you push a button you need to pull the trigger of the controller creating a real feeling of physical interaction. Inside the game play you see how your finger bends towards the button while your real finger is pulling the trigger.

Touch interaction

The crew roles

I enjoyed most of all the role of the captain because I had a full overview of what was going on. Still, it was the most challenging role as I was responsible for taking decisions and coordinating the work of my crew. Especially in high risk scenarios when we were attacked by an enemy I had to be quick and take the right decisions.

Apart from the captain role, I could take the role of the engineer, helm, or tactical officer. Allowing the player to replay all missions in the shoes of a different crew members is a great way to create additional content without additional efforts. Let’s take a look into the specifics of each role.

Engineering

At the engineering position I was responsible for two things — allocating power to the ship’s subsystems according to the captain’s commands as well as managing system repairs. A great help for newbies is that at any point I could turn on an overlay showing hints of the purpose of each button.

Engineering: Allocate power to subsystems UI

Repair system view:

Engineering: Repair systems UI

What I found helpful in the interaction design of this UI was that when I had to allocate power to different systems I did not have to drag and drop power cores but just touch the level at which I wanted power allocated. The simplicity of the action made it easy and fast which was extremely helpful in the middle of a battle when I had to actively switch power from one system to another.

Engineering: allocating power

In contrast, when turning on the Routing mode where I could allocate additional power cores between subsystems in emergency situations I needed to use drag and drop. The reason is that in this mode allocations could cause severe damage to subsystems thus the player needs to be very careful. The developers further reduced the risk of unintentionally moving a power core by making them sticky. The player needs to drag the core further than half of the distance between the two subsystems in order for it to transfer to the other one.

Engineering: Routing regime

Helm

Another favorite position of mine is the one of the Helm. In this role I was responsible for controlling the ship’s position, Impulse and Warp. At first I thought that it would be a tough role. Using touch screen to guide the ship seemed to be very in-pressie but in reality the interaction was designed so it was easy and enjoyable.

Helm: Local display

For example,when I wanted to reduce the speed to Zero, there was an interval whiting which the speed was zero making it easy to hit it without getting into the negative zone. Still, if I wanted to fully stop the ship, I had to go to a negative speed in order to balance the acceleration. But how could I calculate the necessary negative speed for each acceleration? It wasn’t actually necessary because the game designers decided to make the player’s life easier by adding a “Full Stop” button.

Helm: Reduce ship speed to zero

Also, plotting the course for impulse or warp was facilitated by letting the player orient the ship within a range but not struggle to set the course towards a single point on the map.

Helm: Orient ship for impulse

Tactical

The tactical officer is the one who takes care of the scanners, defense and attack systems. This was my least favorite position maybe because the first time I played it I panicked and our whole ship was destroyed :D

Tactical: scanning a target

What I noticed about this position was that the person playing it should have good resource management skills as most of the actions required loading time. Thus, the player should carefully time each of them in order to smoothly operate the defense and attack systems during high-risk situations.

Locomotion

Unlike,EVE Valkyrie a space game I’ve reviewed earlier, Star Trek: Bridge crew did not cause any motion sickness. The design of the game required me to be seated during the whole game play. I could see the ship deck in front of me which completely removed the motion sickness even when the ship was travelling though space. After an hour playing I felt as good as at the beginning.

Star Trek: Bridge crew is one of the most immersive VR games, I’ve tried so far. The reason is that the interactions are simple and easy to get, making the user experience enjoyable. It shows that in virtual reality diegetic UI feels more natural than spatial UI. Also, it teaches an important lesson — well designed small designed details could make a big difference in improving the user experience when thetechnology itself is still chunky.