A Giant Problem News

Movement in VR is something special. It’s not an easy problem to solve. As each method of moving so far developed has its own issues. They run the gamut from being unintuitive, especially for players new to VR, to causing motion sickness in a significant portion of players. Some methods also increase the chances of someone becoming motion sick when changing direction or height.

Meaning, there really is no single answer. It’s not like on console gaming where dual-thumbsticks has become the de-facto control scheme for first person and even third person games. Or PC gaming where the standard is WASD and mouse-look, unless of course you’re playing Tribes. For A Giant Problem we had to deal with some team members being very prone to motion sickness, and what it means to move as a giant.

Ultimately we hit upon a solution that best fits what players have come to expect. And that’s choice! Choice is important because of how quickly you can become uncomfortable in VR. And if you’re uncomfortable, then you’re not going to play. And that’s A Giant Problem.

So we’ve got three methods of movement - teleportation, smooth locomotion, and local movement. We’ve also added snap turning!





If you’ve watched the livestreams, which you can do over on our Twitch channel or YouTube where we archive them, then you’ve seen us jump around the map quite quickly. That’s teleportation. It’s great for a number of reasons, namely very few people get motion sick from it.

If they do we can always give players the ability to adjust how quick the transition is when they teleport. That’s done by having the screen go black and then fade in. You can see it in games like Vader Immortal.





Sometimes you want a more traditional method of getting around. And that doesn’t mean riding a horse. We wouldn’t be able to provide the player with one bigger enough, given they are a giant. Rather we’ve added smooth locomotion, which is your basic FPS controls. Only look isn’t controlled by one thumbtack, as you are wearing a VR headset.





If you have 360º tracking then A Giant Problem works for you, whatever the play space you’ve created. Of course most games in VR are meant to work this way, but if you’ve only got 180º tracking then there’s a limit to how much you can move around and have it reflected in the game. But local movement has always been an important method for us in developing A Giant Problem, as it’s one of the easiest ways to feel like a giant as you stomp up on a horde of goblins roaring, “Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of a goblum!”





Added to every form of movement is snap turning! With just a flick of the thumbstick you can rotate around as the player to face the oncoming hordes. It’s a small thing and not every player is going to or want to use it. And they don’t have to! But it makes life easier, especially if you’ve only got 180º tracking.

It also means you can -

No longer are you confined by gravity! No longer do you need legs! A Giant Problem is for everyone! And that’s what we here at Critical Charm want. We want our game to be as accessible to as many people as possible. Though we recognize the nature of VR and our mechanics mean it may not be possible for everyone, that doesn’t mean we won’t try.

So with that in mind, be sure to Wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam!

So we’ve got a new character to show you. And it’s a Hedgehog. A slightly blue Hedgehog. That’s pure coincidence. And it’s so cute! That’s coming from someone who doesn’t use that term regularly.

But worry not, you won’t be going around smacking the Hedgehogs. That just wouldn’t be nice. Instead, you get to make friends with them. And while you can pet them, we don’t think this will qualify A Giant Problem for Can You Pet The Dog.



The Hedgehogs are the second ally the player will have. Where the Gnomes are your melee units, the Hedgehogs are your range units. And to make it even better, they’re using their own spines as arrows. It may sound painful, but don’t worry they do so willingly and are never harmed in the process.



These little buddies will help you with your defenses. Of course it’s still very much going to be on you to clear the enemies and make sure your little friends don’t get hurt. But the placement of them will help alleviate some of the pressure. And like just about everything else in A Giant Problem, you’ll be able to get hands on with the Hedgehogs and use them as a very spikey weapon. If that’s your thing.



We’re not quite sure why you would. They’re just so cute, that any giant, no matter how ferocious will want to just curl up in a corner and just stroke their little chins. Which has led some on the Critical Charm team to suggest a mode where you get to just lie on the ground while Hedgehogs curl up and snooze on you. Sadly we don’t have a pun for that mode.



More important than a pun, is the name of the Hedgehogs. Internally we’ve had some debate about them. One side wants to call them pixies, as they’re inspired by the Pixie drawn by Brian Froud in the book Faeries. So we’re going to turn to you to answer what their name should be. We’ll put up a poll on Twitter and you can decide what we call them. You can find the poll here.



In the pictures above you get a look at Minna’s process for creating the Hedgehog. 3D character creation is complex, especially for VR when the player can see objects from all angles. It means there can’t be any oversights. Which for a short while meant the Hedgehog didn’t have a butt. That’s now remedied thanks to Minna’s diligent work. And if you’re wondering, she works in Blender to create the models. Hopefully in the future we can get her to provide some of her tips and tricks for Blender, modeling, texturing and animating characters for VR.

Until then you can wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam! And be sure to share it with your friends, family, and enemies who are also interested in VR. There’s no reason to deny them such fun!

One of the first things we had to decide in creating A Giant Problem was how big you, as the player, are. The easy answer is big. But it’s more complicated than that, because it’s a matter of how big. It may seem trivial to say bigger than big, and larger than large. Yet it still doesn’t answer the question of how gigantic should the player be in comparison to the rest of the world.

For one, we’re dealing with two very different worlds and how the player feels in each of them. Everyone has a sense of how big their bodies are and how they move in the real world. We’re trying to replicate the movement as much as possible in A Giant Problem, but the size is a different issue, because we’re putting you in the form of a giant. So your hands are larger, unless you’re someone with particularly sizable appendages.

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Hands are the first thing that let you know as a player you’re working at a different scale than in real life. Not only do they look and feel bigger, but there’s a certain clumsiness to them. Which stems from the lack of finesse in VR, and that works in our favor as giants aren’t perceived as graceful creatures. Not that they can’t be, we’d love to make a game where you’re an extremely large ballerina. That’s just not this game.

Though that may be the sequel - A Giant Problem Tutu. Or A Giant Problem: On Pointe. Or A Giant Problem: High Barre. And even A Giant Problem: Second Position.

The lack of grace works in our favor. Figuring out an appropriate scale doesn’t. In part because everyone has a different idea of what a giant is. Or really how big one is. Even the mythologies of the world have giants being of different sizes. They go anywhere from a couple meters tall to tens if not hundreds of meters tall. For us, we decide to go on the shorter end, because of all the additional difficulties that arise the bigger a player gets.

Basically the bigger you become, the smaller enemies become, to make you feel like a giant. And small enemies are hard to hit. They’re hard to hit whether you’ve got a sword, club, rock or even a gun. No there are no guns in A Giant Problem. But the logic applies. Also weapon differentiation becomes extremely difficult when there’s a size difference. How is a sword behaving any differently than a club or a spear when you’re trying to smack something small - it doesn’t.

Get too big and then you can also start to feel less powerful if you can’t kill enemies quickly. Think of it like smushing bugs. We’re so much bigger than, most of, them. Don’t look up anything from Australia. Seriously, avoid all Australian insects and arachnids. So we expect and want them to die in a single hit. If any enemy or a bug doesn’t die in a single hit then we don’t feel powerful. And feeling powerful is part of being a giant.

The other issue that comes with items or creatures being so much smaller than you in VR, is how you interact with them. You’re going to want to pick them up. It’s fun. It’s part of being a giant. What isn’t fun is always bending down or looking down. It’s taxing on your lower back, and even worse for your neck if you’re staring at your feet with the weight of a VR headset straining you. So we have a simple solution - we call it Reach.

It basically makes you a Jedi. So you can pull objects to your hand from some distance away. It’s got a limited range, and once players start using it they generally stop bending over all together. This has the bonus affect of getting players to look forward more, rather than down. It improves the playability immensely even if it doesn’t immediately scream “giant” at you. That in turn makes the game more fun, and players capable of playing for longer sessions.

So that’s a little design break down for the game. We’ll have more on it in the future. For now, be sure to wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam if you haven’t already!

Match Up The XR Event is an annual SLUSH pre-event in Helsinki, focusing on AR/VR industry, technologies and solutions. The event is held now for the third time and it will host 400+ attendees from all over the world. The Event is free of charge – tickets available now! This year the main organizer is  brand new Helsinki XR Center together with Metropolia UAS & FIVR – Finnish Virtual Reality Association.

Guess who happens to be based at HXRC and is a member of FIVR? That’s right Critical Charm! So we’ll be at Match Up in all our glory. A Giant Problem will be there too! So it’s the perfect time to come demo our work and see all the advances we’ve made. We may also live stream the event again. But we’ll let you know more closer to the date.

• Companies interested in new solutions in VR/AR solutions
  
• Companies looking for new partners and new talents
  
• AR/VR teams and startups seeking new customers
  
• Industry experts
  
• Academics
  
• Students
  

During the evening attendees will meet top VR/AR companies and startups. Forefront corporations tell how they have already utilized XR in their projects and keynote speakers will share their industry expertise and outlook of future XR development and technologies. And yes, there’s food and drinks!



As part of the evening program, we’re arranging a matchmaking session. You can have 20 minute 1 to 1 meetings with other participants. Attending a matchmaking event is a quick and easy way to meet new potential cooperation partners. High speed meetings are perfect for first impressions and new contacts. This is your chance to make a first impression that lasts!



16:00 – 21:00 Demos and Exhibition / Mingling, food and drinks
17:00 – 18:00 Welcome to Match Up!
18:00 – 20:00 Keynotes – Live stream with XR industry leader(s) & Fireside Chat
18:00 – 20:00 XR Match Up – 1 to 1 Meetings

Registration is now open click here. The event is free of charge, however, you need to register to get your event badge from the entrance. For the whole evening program and one-to-one meetings (matchmaking).

Alright, that’s seriously enough. We’ve clearly committed a number of offenses…

And we can’t stop. Or maybe we just don’t want to.

But that’s just because we’re excited for our latest feature update, and that’s a point system! A la your favorite RPG games. That’s right! Whether it’s Destiny, Borderlands, Diablo or any number of other games with numbers flying through the air! We now have that too!



This announcement may leave you wondering - what’s the big deal? Numbers, smumbers. Everyone’s got numbers. And yes everyone’s got numbers. But no one has numbers like us. That’s probably factually false. Instead a way to look at it is, we’re just doing good game design.

And numbers are part of it. The numbers displayed in A Giant Problem, aren’t damage. Rather they’re the points the player receives for hitting or killing enemies. The sum of which is displayed to the player throughout the game and at the end of a level. It’s a simple arcade aspect, yet one well worth leaning into for what it does for the overall feel of the game.



Numbers, as they often are in any games, serve two purposes. One - they let the player know how they’re doing. And two - they serve as encouragement to do better. For A Giant Problem, that means encouraging the player to do something more than just smashing the oncoming horde of goblins. It could be throwing them, swatting them aside, tossing a fireball at them, etc. Experimentation is rewarded. It’s part of the design of the game, and the numbers flying through the air help highlight that.

They’re also very pretty.



Pretty aside, we won’t say right now how the points and the scores tie in to the rest of the game. Just know that they will. More on that in a future update.

For now, if you haven’t already, be sure to wishlist A Giant Problem on Steam. And subscribe to our newsletter on our website to stay up-to-date on all that’s happening with A Giant Problem and us at Critical Charm.