Wheelchair Basketball VR

University Project. 3. Semester

Play wheelchair basketball in VR with realistic wheelchair locomotion and multiplayer support. Learn more about the origins of wheelchair sports as a veteran in the 1950s.

Trailer

My Contributions

  • Vision Keeper
  • Game Design
  • UX Design
    • Designing the wheelchair locomotion & world interactions
  • Development (Unity, C#, Oculus SDK)

Fellow Team Members: Juliana Kralik, Marius Kröger, Louis Vogt, Nepomuk Kindermann

Design

Research

To get a feel for the wheelchair movement and sport in general, our group met up with a local club for test training.

Throwing

Basetballs use the average velocity of the last 12 frames when thrown. Accuracy was still a problem, so I created a system that detects, if a ball is thrown to a hoop, if this was the case the trajectory was adjusted to be 50% closer to the target. Haptic feedback is used to give a feel for the ball’s weight.

Movement

The player can grab each individual wheel to either push or brake, like an actual wheelchair.
A custom controller generates the move direction and rotation according to the wheel’s speed.

Motion Sickness Prevention

VR inexperienced players became motion sick due to the accelerated movement and smooth rotation. To provide a realistic wheelchair-locomotion for everyone I created the indirect control method. The player uses both wheels to control a preview of the wheelchair, to which they can teleport with a press of a button.

Gameplay

3 Multiplayer Modes:

  • Sandbox
  • Arena Dodgeball
  • Barrel Throw

1 Singleplayer Mode:

  • Story

Multiplayer Gameplay

Level Design

This game is set shortly after WW2, in the time wheelchair sports were created by veterans. Before reaching the Gym Hall, in which the main gameplay takes place, the player experiences a short story section. The whole story is told on a detour from the locker room to the gym, as the actual path is blocked by stairs. You start this section alone, but meet your friend at the end.

Story Playthrough

Locations

Art by Juli Kralik