I didn’t expect that a VR rock-climbing game that used neck thrusts as one of the primary locomotion mechanics would be as immersive or fun as it was, but I was really impressed with the level of immersion and presence that I felt while playing Crytek’s The Climb, which was recently released for the Oculus Rift.
There was something really satisfying to reaching the vista and enjoying the amazing view after climbing up the metaphoric and virtual mountain side. A lot of the game mechanics of a first-person rock climbing game translates really well to strengths of VR as a medium and provides an overall compelling and exhilarating experience. I had a chance to catch up with Crytek executive producer Elijah Freeman at the Oculus Game Days event at GDC to learn more about how they cultivated a sense of presence, evolved the gameplay, and got a lot of feedback from actual rock climbers who were a part of the production of the game.
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Here’s a trailer from Oculus to promote The Climb & the Rift:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z3fYWJTg7k
And here’s the launch trailer for The Climb
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Music: Fatality & Summer Trip
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. My name is Kent Bye, and welcome to The Voices of VR Podcast. Today I talked to Elijah Freeman, who is the executive producer of The Climb from Crytek. The Climb is essentially like a rock climbing game that was just released on the Oculus Rift, and it's using the gamepad in combination with positional tracking. And so you have to really physically lean forward in order to actually climb the rock and use the gamepad to be able to do a variety of different types of grips and jumps and other types of game mechanics that are built in. And so I think the interesting thing about the climb is that it does create a very strong sense of embodied presence in the experience, because it's going beyond just using a gamepad controller. And you are physically moving around, which does add to this sense of immersion and presence, as well as the game components and a sense of travel and exploration that's happening here, because you're literally climbing up a mountain. And when you get to the top, you get to enjoy the vistas that you see there. So I talked to Elijah about some of the gameplay mechanics that developed over time, how Crytek approached trying to create a sense of presence, and what kind of insights they added into the game from some of the development team who were actually rock climbers. So that's what we'll be covering today on the podcast. So before we get started, let's hear a brief word from our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by the Virtual World Society. The Virtual World Society was started by Tom Furness, and their goal is to become the Peace Corps of VR. They want to transform living rooms into classrooms, and so they're in the process of trying to recruit potential subscribers, as well as content creators who are interested in creating educational experiences that help solve the world's problems and help make the world a better place. So if you're interested, go to virtualworldsociety.org to sign up and get more information. So this interview took place at GDC, at Oculus' Game Day event. And they had rented out a whole bar and had all these different cubicles that you walk into. And you essentially have like a half hour slot to play the game as well as do any type of interview. So I had just finished playing about 15 minutes of the game and then was able to catch up with Elijah afterwards. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:33.432] Elijah Freeman: Hi, my name is Elijah Freeman. I'm the executive producer on The Climb that you just tried. And what we're trying to do is create a climber that's a free solo rock climber that you can play from your living room.
[00:02:43.862] Kent Bye: Great. So talk to me a little bit about what are the primary game mechanics in this game.
[00:02:48.628] Elijah Freeman: So there's a couple simple mechanics. Based on head tracking, you look where you want to reach and you pull a trigger and you're able to grab on. As well as there is a mechanism for jumping. There's some ghost race. You can race against your friends' best times. As well as you will be able to experience lots of different areas for exploration and unique things that are in there. There's some tracking that allows you to be able to discern where you are and it makes offers a suggestion of how to get to the top. As well as there are multiple different types of grips. As you play through the easy, medium and hard levels you will experience different grips. One is a grip that you have to clean the debris off of it. The other is a poisonous grip that can cause your stamina to drain faster. And the last one is a crumbling grip which you only have a couple of seconds to make a choice and make a strategic move up the course of the mountain.
[00:03:40.088] Kent Bye: Yeah, so it was kind of an interesting gameplay in terms of, you know, you have two hands, and if you hold on to one hand, then your stamina goes down and you fall down. But if you hold on with two hands, you can hold on for as long as you want. And so you have, like, little ledges that have white dust chalk on the edge that is kind of helping you guide the way. But if you need, like, a guide, it'll have arrows kind of direct you in that way. And then you also are kind of jumping around as well, so you can jump up and down. As you were trying to flesh out these game mechanics, for you, what do you see as the progression of how do you design the levels to make them go from the beginning and then get more and more complicated?
[00:04:19.119] Elijah Freeman: Great question. So, we loosely based this on realism, right? We wanted the levels and the environments to feel very realistic, to transport the gamer to something that they would feel like, wow, I've really tried something unique and special. As the gameplay started to evolve, we prototyped out the climb mechanic. We knew it was fun. We knew we had something special because as soon as the verticality and the scale was present in the game, it was already fun, even in a white box. But as soon as we got the textures in and it felt real, it was really fun to try. Then, obviously, we wanted to challenge ourselves. So we started placing grips in areas and making precarious moves that you generally wouldn't try in real life. We wanted people to have that sense of excitement that you could only get if you were truly a climber up in one of these situations on a cliffside, right? As well as then we wanted to, you know, gamify it a little bit. Sorry to use that term, but we wanted to have, you know, ways to race against others. So adding obstacles and various situations and unique flows up the mountainside allowed us to make that gaming experience much more rewarding.
[00:05:22.873] Kent Bye: Yeah, it makes me think of a lot of times virtual reality you're mimicking reality and other times you're taking a mechanic that is reality and you're gamifying it in some way. And so I'm curious if you've had actual rock climbers play this game and if you've seen that they tend to be a little bit more conservative than someone who's a gamer who's more wild and crazy jumping around everywhere.
[00:05:40.100] Elijah Freeman: That's an interesting question because multiple guys on the team are actually rock climbers. They try this on a regular basis. And ironically, these are the guys that are actually trying the crazy stuff. So I would think that a little bit of real life has bled into this game. And not only that, since we started working on the game, everybody has been contacting us and saying, hey, you should try this. Everybody wants their input. I think there was a niche out there that no one had filled for a while, and climbing games seemed to be of interest to a lot of people. Tourism boards have been contacted to say, hey, you should show our, you know, so that's the kind of thing we're.
[00:06:13.046] Kent Bye: Yeah, and do you feel like that you would eventually, like, actually do some real rocks that, you know, would have an actual path rather than sort of these more constructed imaginary scenes?
[00:06:23.797] Elijah Freeman: Never say never, but, you know, first and foremost, we're game guys, right? We want it to be fun. And if it's fun, then yeah, we'll look into it. Right now, we looked at the paths that we could find and we liked building our own because it lends itself to the gameplay that we wanted. Because we want people to have fun. We want them to have that sense of adventure that you get in rock climbing. And we think we deliver it, given the different environments we've given.
[00:06:45.777] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I've also noticed that because you're using positional tracking, you're able to kind of add that to the gameplay. So talk a bit about some of the considerations that you did in order to do positional tracking into the game.
[00:06:57.006] Elijah Freeman: So that's a great question as well, because that's one of the things that the gamers that are on the team, that are actually environment designers, they contributed this one aspect because they actually climbers as well they want to make it so that when you a grip is just a little bit outta your reach you have to commit to it you have to let go of one hand to grab the other one and that's the kind of thing that they contribute that's what real climbers contribute to this you know cuz you know just as gamers you know it's just fun to grab onto but just that little bit of nuance extra made it really fun and made people feel like wow I'm really committing this really feels like a game oh this is a place where I might jump you know that kind of mentality is is blood into the game obviously and probably literally.
[00:07:36.186] Kent Bye: Yeah, there were a number of times where I actually hit the wrong button. I jumped when I didn't mean to. And it was a bit of like, ah, oh my gosh. And it did feel like a little exhilarating to be on this rock and to be flying through the air and then have to quickly, as fast as I could, grab onto the edge.
[00:07:50.535] Elijah Freeman: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's, if we can give you that kind of sense of presence in the game where you actually feel tension about where you are in position in the game, then we've won. That's what we're trying to achieve. We want people to feel like you're really there.
[00:08:03.195] Kent Bye: So maybe you could tell me, like, why do you think this game needs to be in VR?
[00:08:07.898] Elijah Freeman: Well, to be fair, we thought about this game for VR. Crytek, in its DNA, we are innovators in general, and we wanted, since the medium was out again, you know, this time, we felt like, wow, it's really going to stick, and we want to do something special for it. So we started from the ground up looking at the medium, and we started thinking about prototyping, you know, different mechanics that would work in this medium. And the climbing is the one we particularly came up with. Obviously there was other ones, but this is the one that we liked and we felt special about. And then the rest of it just kind of played into it. Given the fact that we have the CryEngine, we could render these amazing environments at 90 frames per second and that was a huge aspect for us. As well as we have all the artists that do this kind of work. Free open spaces is our DNA. These are all the elements that lent itself to VR, and that's why we think that this is a great game for VR. And now it's unique amongst the pack of VR games. I don't know of any other climbing-type scenarios, like the first-person climbers. Unique.
[00:09:05.803] Kent Bye: Yeah, I actually don't think it would work at all or wouldn't be nearly as compelling in 2D, just given the gamepad and the leaning. But the other part about the VR that I think really stands out is that you get this sense of presence and being these really beautiful places and I think in terms of the final, you know, getting to the top, there's a little bit of like struggle to be able to climb up to the top of a mountain, like literally you're at the top of the mountain and you get to look over the vista and I think that in terms of a reward in the VR experience, it's very satisfying.
[00:09:35.758] Elijah Freeman: Well, that's exactly the intention. I mean, if you feel like you've earned something by the time you get to the top and you want to throw your hands up and yell, I mean, we've achieved our goal. I think that's the beauty of this game. It's one of those games that's going to make people feel highly rewarded when they finish it.
[00:09:50.210] Kent Bye: So talk about some of the scenes that you're climbing through and what type of things that you have in terms of making it interesting and dynamic.
[00:09:57.450] Elijah Freeman: Well, in speaking with the guys that actually climb in the real world, one of the things that they talked to us about was the serenity of being there by yourself, feeling the mountain. That's why you don't hear a lot of music, you know, blowing through. You actually hear the wind, the sound of nature. These are the kind of things that we wanted to add into this. And, in general, this is the elements that are in the game, and so if you look at, like, the areas, like, the locations and settings that we've chosen, which in this demo you've seen the Asia, which is loosely based on Ha Long Bay, Vietnam, and then the Alps, which is loosely German-Austrian Alps. We focused on the nature, the beauty of the rocks, the beauty of the environment, the sounds that would be associated, the natural things you would see there, and then some little bit festive things as well. And each one of those things are revealed on unique levels. Like I said, there's the easy, medium, and hard, and each one has a unique kind of feel to it.
[00:10:49.064] Kent Bye: Yeah, and it seemed to also be like inside, outside, like you're in a cave, and you're like outside, and it's day and night. Maybe talk about some of those other variations.
[00:10:57.030] Elijah Freeman: Absolutely. There's kind of a, it's an oscillating kind of design. So you have something you're struggling to achieve it, and then you get out there, you get a reward, you can relax for a little bit. There's usually a platform you can take time to cool down, and then you get another difficult climb, and then a relax period. So it's kind of that oscillating reward. And even if you go the wrong way in this game, there's something rewarding there for you.
[00:11:19.909] Kent Bye: That's good to know. Yeah, the first time I played this at the VRX conference, there was like dinosaurs that were flying around and I was looking around and, you know, it just was really, you know, I'd never seen a dinosaur fly by me when I was rock climbing. What other types of things do you have to kind of make the scene interesting? Things that are either flying around or making it a little bit more dynamic?
[00:11:37.373] Elijah Freeman: So, one of the things that I want to explain, and I think this is interesting, to be honest with you, in VR, the medium is so unique, you could be brushing your teeth in VR and make it a unique experience, right? If you want to spend the time, there's so much to do within that space that you can make it unique. What we've done though is we've taken a look at these environments. We thought, how can we make them interesting, right? What can we do? We want to give the player the sense of presence in the game. So we bring, like, you know, some little animals to come and surprise you at certain points in time. As well as we physicalize the plants, like, so as you walk by or brush by them, they actually move. And as you climb up something, a bird may fly out of a bush. These kind of elements, as well as in the end events, there's always some sort of festive moment. Like you've hit upon this location, this setting, in festival timing. You know, that's basically the types of items that we've added to make this interesting. As well as there's things that I won't go into that you can find within the levels and they make it more interesting.
[00:12:37.273] Kent Bye: In terms of the CryEngine, what are some of the things that you're able to do in this experience that you think are unique to what Crytek is able to do?
[00:12:45.996] Elijah Freeman: Well, obviously, one of the most amazing things, if you play the game and look at the environments, we're rendering 90 frames per second with almost photorealistic images. And this is geometry, so it's beautiful. I mean, artistically, and the lighting, it just brings a sense of realism that's not easily generated. That, I think, is one of the things that plays well in balancing when you're in this game, because you get a sense of tension when you look down and you feel like, that's actually real down there. I could fall, you know? And I think that the CryEngine has helped us push it just to that little bit more than you can get out of a normal engine.
[00:13:23.579] Kent Bye: So, I guess, for you, what do you want to experience in VR then?
[00:13:27.554] Elijah Freeman: Well, I mean, I think what I want to experience, I actually just did, right? This is the game that we wanted to make as we started unfolding this. So since then, you know, we probably have 10 other ideas just because as you start playing more in these type of environments, you go, hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this, right? And I think in the next things you see come out of the climb, you'll start to see some of these are all kind of embedded into the climb right now.
[00:13:51.365] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality, and what it might be able to enable?
[00:13:58.050] Elijah Freeman: Sky's the limit. I mean, because I think right now what we're seeing is the tip of the iceberg. Obviously, there's going to be lots of applications for this. The more realism that I see come into these games are just the more that the designers start playing with locomotion. I think that eventually we're going to solve locomotion completely, and then sky's the limit. It's awesome. I can't wait. Maybe the toothbrush VR demo. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. You bet. Thanks a lot and glad you enjoyed the game.
[00:14:25.487] Kent Bye: So that was Elijah Friedman, who was the executive producer of The Climb at Crytek. And a couple quick takeaways from that is that this was an experience that did create quite a good sense of embodied presence because you were physically moving around. It does take your mind a little bit of a translation to get used to the fact that instead of actually using your hand and grabbing and climbing, kind of thrusting your body forward and I was sitting down and I think a lot of the videos and people playing have them standing up and I think standing up may actually be a little bit more of a comfortable experience than sitting down but I could imagine in the future how this would be an even better game using the Oculus Touch controllers and so it seems like kind of made for the oculus touch in that way so we'll see how they are able to do all the other different types of game mechanics that they have because you are doing a lot of different abstract translations using the different gamepad controller to be able to do the different grips and chalk your hands and jump and all sorts of other things that are in this abstraction layer. So it's a really interesting mix between actual physical movement that is reflected in VR, but also using a gamepad controller. And I think because there is this breaking through and actually physically moving your body, then I think people are reporting a deeper sense of presence in the game. So I would wonder about the long-term effects of playing this type of game because that mechanic of really thrusting your face and neck forward can be a little bit fatiguing on the neck. So I've seen some people report that, you know, standing up does help with that. It's also interesting to hear about all the different ways that they're trying to create this sense of presence. So creating a strong sense of plausibility by having moving plants as you go by, having no music and just ambient sounds. And it turns out to be a little bit of a VR mechanic that just feels satisfying to do as you're climbing up this rock. And when you get to the top, it actually has a really good payoff to be able to overlook a vista. And so there's a little bit of a naturalized incentive to be able to get to the end goal and kind of take a moment and enjoy the view. Now, for me, I did experience a little bit of subtle motion sickness from the game. And I don't know if it's from the jumping around, where there's so much of a disconnect from my vestibular system and my visual system that my inner ear is not feeling the motion of jumping and moving up and down. But I also fell a number of times. And so when you're falling in VR, that can have an impact on making you a little bit motion sick, because you have the visual input that you're falling, but you don't actually feel like you're falling. I just ended up closing my eyes as fast as I could. And so I imagine if you do have sensitivities to motion sickness, then learning when to close your eyes is going to be a key thing when you're playing games like this in VR. So with that, just to kind of wrap things up here, I just wanted to announce that I just did cross 160 Patreon contributors and just crossed the $1,000 mark, which is pretty remarkable. And I'm very happy to see the increased engagement and people helping support what I'm doing here, because I do feel like what I'm doing is of service to the larger virtual reality community to be able to travel to these different conferences and talk to some of the leading developers and pioneers and academics in the field to be able to share all these different insights and be able to also synthesize and try to make sense and contextualize what's happening with this virtual reality revolution. So, I mean, I'm absolutely passionate in doing it and I would probably be doing it anyway, but just all the different donations and support that have been coming in to help support both my travels and expenses, both from travel and also my time to be able to put this together every day. Just really appreciate all the different Patreon contributors that have had so far. And if you do appreciate the Voices of VR as a service to the VR community, then please consider throwing me a tip. think about the Voices of VR as a service that you're receiving. And if you're receiving some value from it, then consider throwing some energy back my way so that I can continue to sustain and grow the Voices of VR podcast. So you can become a contributor at patreon.com slash Voices of VR.
