Want to “experience the magic of ‘presence’ in VR, exploring moments that feel as real as they are fantastically impossible?” Then you need to try Oculus’s ‘ First Contact’.
Oculus First Contact
What exactly is this Oculus First Contact?
In their own words, “ First Contact is an official Oculus experience designed to be your entryway to Oculus Touch”. You can “experience the magic of ‘presence’ in VR,” by “exploring moments that feel as real as they are fantastically impossible.”
What Oculus Rex (the team that built Oculus First Contact) did was, they built a magic box full of toys and a robot guide. In that box you can make a new friend, then touch, tap, bounce, hold and throw things, and play together.
My Experience Trying Oculus First Contact
My experience trying out Oculus First Contact happened to be my first PC VR platform experience. This experience was at Imisi 3D Lab.
I’ve had lots of VR experiences in the past. However, those VR experiences where on Google Cardboard. But trying out PC VR expreince(Oculus First Contact on Oculus Rift), was a mouth opening experience for me.
My expression trying out PC VR for the first time
In the experience (Oculus First Contact), I experienced the magic of ‘presence’ in VR, because I could touch, tap, bounce, hold and throw things.
Me trying not to get hit.
I was exploring moments that feel as real as they are fantastically impossible. One of those moments was when I was trying not to get hit. See my expression in the real worlds in the picture above, as an event of my feeling of ‘presence’ in the experience.
Me in the physical world looking at my hands in VR
At first, I couldn’t figure out what I was suppose to do in the experience after making friends with the robot. But with intuition and cues from the guys in the Lab, I was able to follow the robot guide.
Robot handing a disk over
From a design perspective, the level of realism of the environment and the objects in it is awesome. The feed-forward in the interaction was superb.
Following the robot guide
From a scale and ‘presence’ perspective, the experience has an interaction that makes it feels life like for you. Imagine me shooting and It feels like it was a real life thing.
Shooting objects
My conclusion
Oculus First Contact offers everyone an opportunity to experience ‘presence’ in VR and also see all the beauties of VR. Whether you are a VR veteran or have never even tried VR before, Oculus First Contact has the ability to make you feel present and immersed in VR.
PS: Copyright to images and video of first contact used here belongs to the respective owners.