Paradise Island VR MMO – New Steam game

Hello my friends!

Here I would like to talk about our new release Paradise Island VR MMO and the development process as well as the feedback from the community.
Link to the game: Paradise Island

We started the develpoment of the game thinking about Virtual Reality and trying to create a game that would fit well for the upcoming Oculus Rift and Steam Vive.
Since it’s really difficult to create an action game for the oculus because of the problems regarding motion sickness, we wanted to develop a calm and relaxing game.

We started to study the most relaxing environments and to do this we read
“Origins of Architectural Pleasure“ taking inspiration from the Renzo Piano’s designs too.

The main statement of the book is that the human being chooses the most confortable places based on his primitive instincts (survival, procreation and safety)
It’s a really interesting book that I suggest you to read, here some of the concepts we took as guidelines for the envinronments:

• One thing that we really need and we have always needed, is a place that protects us. We need a place that protects us from the outside dangers: Cold, Rain, Snow, Sun and even animals expecially when we are vulnerables for example during mating. Our search for intimacy is the key for building a confortable environment.

   

• It’s obvious that we like to have natural archetypes or simulation of it. But not all the natural settings are places of tranquility reassuring: natural denses settings creates often create anxiety in the observer and there is a real terror in the thought to be lefts in an open space in the African savannah since it was our first home as humans.

   

• The pleasure of order and complexity are innate, so much that it is hard to see how it could be otherwise.

   

• Order and complexity are not simply useful, they are necessary: Order without complexity is monotonous.

   

• Complexity without order is not satisfactory, it’s difficult to organize.

   

• The Falling Water designed by Lloyd Wright presents these features. The house is in a large amount of vegetation and stones arranged like a cave that anchor the house to the hill , giving everyone a haven of security and peace.

   

• Emphasize the importance of light and darkness is the most difficult part of the considerations on the architecture. Determine some of the most deep comfort emotions and interest in the setting. The contrast of the amount of light has been a key element in the architecture of spaces for several millennia. We evaluate the darkness of concelment also. this is the place where we sleep, procreate, meditate and we restore by injuries and diseases.

   

• Prospectus, Shelter, Eticement and Danger are essential features for a place to live in, and belong to the priciples of architecture.

   

• It is in danger or pleasure or both into the hidden. Explore could reveal the presence or absence of a place to live, food, water and even the danger of other creatures. The chances of survival are improved if we are driven to get this knowledge in relative safety.

   

• Appleton defines three different groups of Dangers: accidents , disability or deficiency. The defense by the latter intensifies the value of the refuge.
• Darkness keeps the information while the light gives it. In the churches, the light is only enough to suggest that there are other information nearby. exploration always leads discovery of new parts of environment.

• Adding a river is key to survive: you can drink fresh water at frequent intervals, and provides fishes to eat. this is essential for life.

• Large Windows give the possibility to better spot the outside and the dangers.

• Psychology studies have found out that people working in places with no windows, have mental and psychological disorders.

• Blue and Green color are seen as restful since were present in our old houses. 

• Red color attracts attention from the animals.

• One of the functions of the arts, including architecture, is to provide sensory experience not parallel to the complexity of nature.

• There’s a Darwinian argument regarding the creation and performance of music: the listening pleasure that we feel and the pleasure that he feels in composing it, are visions of a universal pleasure. 
• We take pleasure in discovering new different types of materials in our collections, things related to primordial experiences but somehow new.

These principles really helped us a lot in order to have a guideline to follow for the development of the environments.

We decided to implement even an online feature so that every player would be able see the other players in the form of souls and be able to interact with them.
It really help us a lot to understand even what were the most interesting environments for the gamers and where they used to gather.

With a total of 20.000 copies sold on Steam of this first game in VR, we concluded that Virtaul Reality combined with confortable environments and Massive Multiplayer Online features, are a new beginning for the gaming community!

We’re now expanding the game based on the feedback from the community as well as a new mode dedicated for the Steam Vive VR, so stay tuned for new updates!