One of my favorite VR games is the Kokoromi Collective’s SUPERHYPERCUBE, which is a very stylized 3D Tetris game with amazing sound design. It’s a VR experience that really gives your brain a stimulating spatial memory workout. I first had a chance to play SUPERHYPERCUBE at the XOXO Festival, and I learned more about the process of designing the game from Kokoromi Collective members Heather Kelley & Phil Fish. I had a chance to do an interview with Heather at Sony’s GDC event this year where she described to me a bit of their game design process and long history of developing this game going all the way back to 2008.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
It was surprisingly difficult to find footage online that really conveys what the gameplay looks like. Here’s an animated GIF that shows some of the basic mechanic, but a lot of the immersive feeling of the game is obviously lost in this 2D translation.
This gameplay footage of SUPERHYPERCUBE correlates what it’s like moving your head around to be able to see how to rotate the cube, but the footage is hard to really make more out of the gameplay.
And here’s some of the original gameplay of SUPERHYPERCUBE from 2008 that shows the same mechanic, but the art and sound design has been drastically improved.
You can read more about the history of this game from Ben Lang’s write-up on SUPERHYPERCUBE.
Become a Patron! Support The Voices of VR Podcast Patreon
Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio
Subscribe to the Voices of VR podcast.
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. Today I talked to Heather Kelly of the Kokurami Collective about Super Hypercube, which is a launch title for the PlayStation VR. I first had a chance to play Super Hypercube back at the XOXO Festival last year, and had just a lot of fun playing it. It's one of the titles that I'm most looking forward to on the PlayStation VR. It's kind of like a 3D Tetris game, and I'm somebody who just loved playing Tetris growing up. Now, they've actually been working on this game since 2008 and have had a lot of the core mechanics down, but there's just all sorts of different small variables and tweaks that can completely change the game. So I talked to Heather about the game design process as well as their design goals and what they're trying to do with this experience. And before we dive in, just a quick shout out to Jonathan Kano, one of my Patreon contributors, who suggested that I start doing these intros and outros. And so if you like these, you can send me a shout out at Kent Bye on Twitter. Or if you feel inspired, go ahead and contribute to my Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash Voices of VR. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:30.332] Heather Kelley: I'm Heather Kelly. I'm one of the four members of the Cocoromi Collective. We are a collective that started out in Montreal and are now distributed widely. And we are working on our game Super Hypercube for launch on PlayStation VR. And we've been working on this game in one form or another since 2008, if you can believe it. But the first version was for a kind of hacked together system using IR glasses and using Red Cyan stereoscopic vision. So yeah, it's like old school DIY version. And we've been working on the official worldwide version here for about a year and a half-ish.
[00:02:21.717] Kent Bye: Yeah, so maybe you could describe to me a little bit about the gameplay and what's actually happening.
[00:02:26.444] Heather Kelley: Mm-hmm. So it's a puzzle game. You are controlling a cluster of cubes, and you rotate the cluster around on the six axes, and there's a wall coming towards you. You're sort of always moving forward, and this wall is approaching, and it has a hole in it that's shaped like your cube, but in only one orientation. So you have to rotate the cube to make sure it's fitting through kind of like a key and a lock kind of thing.
[00:02:52.239] Kent Bye: There was a Japanese show that did that a little bit. What was that called?
[00:02:55.065] Heather Kelley: Yeah, I think I've heard it called human Tetris and I also heard in the UK it's called hole in the wall. And so yeah, we compare it a lot to that. That's very much the feeling you get that like you have to just figure out how to orient yourself so that you are fitting through the hole and not getting knocked over. Or in our case, if you hit the wall, you'll lose some cubes off of your cluster.
[00:03:19.618] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I also think of it as kind of like a 3D Tetris where you have to rotate the object around in order to come into a 2D plane so that it actually fits through the hole.
[00:03:29.446] Heather Kelley: Right, and it takes advantage of that same kind of spatial reasoning thinking that Tetris does, so it really taps into that part of your brain and you can definitely really start to get in the zone like Tetris players are notorious for.
[00:03:44.408] Kent Bye: Yeah, I had a chance to play this game a number of times at the XOXO Festival, and I really, really loved it. I mean, I think it's one of those games that I could see myself going in again and again, because it feels like it's one of those games where it actually feels like it's making my visual-spatial skills better the more that I play it, because there's a little bit of, like, having to rotate the object in your mind, and the more efficient and less moves that you make, the higher score that you have.
[00:04:08.958] Heather Kelley: Yeah, that's right. You get some bonuses for how well or how quickly or how efficiently you rotate. And I think you're right, because after playing a while, I have noticed that I seem to... It's like a weird instinct of which way the correct surface is, even if I can't see it. And that's only from just like kind of quickly, without even realizing it, memorizing the cube or having a sense of what it looks like on the other faces. And I'm certain that my ability to do that has gotten better since I started playing it. I couldn't say how much or how measurable that is, but for sure, it's like something you learn. It's a skill. You learn it. The game teaches you to sort of have the skill.
[00:04:50.423] Kent Bye: Yeah, and from the neuroscientists that I've talked to, I think it's a bit of an open problem in terms of doing things in VR and how much of a, you know, it's going to change your fundamental wiring of your brain to have other potential applications. But I suspect that something like the Super Hypercube is one of those games that seems simple on the surface but could have actually a lot of really profound effects of your working visual memory.
[00:05:11.857] Heather Kelley: That is a bold claim. We have no science to prove that that might be the case, but I guess if VR is going to have an effect on our brains, I'm happy if it's a positive one.
[00:05:22.823] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'm just totally speculating here, of course. But it's one of those games that gets me excited because there's the potential there. And I guess we'll find out. But the interesting thing about this game is that on the surface, there's a lot of simple mechanics, but yet there's a lot of really tiny variables that you could tweak that could drastically change the gameplay. So I'm curious about that process and evolution of how you ended up with this version that you're going for towards launch.
[00:05:49.421] Heather Kelley: Yeah, that's really where we're at right now. I mean, all the core mechanics have been in place for, you know, literally almost since 2008 when the original DIY version came out. And what we've been doing now is kind of really tuning all those fine details that most people don't It's like the core essence of game design, really, that most people don't really see, but take it from just kind of like a, oh, that's cool, I played it once thing to like, whoa, I really get into this and it feels really good and like somebody who's just getting into VR can play it, like you can even show it to your grandparents or whatever and they'll get it. Or it really also appeals all the way to someone who's playing it very competitively for the highest score and knows all those little micro tricks to try to boost their ranking. So it's going to hopefully cover that range, ramping people in gently, but then giving them a lot to go back to again and again and show other people as well.
[00:06:49.588] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think one of the big trade-offs that I see in a game like this is optimizing it for a demo or first-time users versus something that you can have a high score and a global leaderboard with something where, you know, the more you play, it's kind of like a consistent difficulty that increases, but there's training for people who are just starting.
[00:07:10.104] Heather Kelley: Yeah, that's really a very complicated problem, so that's why we're putting a lot of time on it right now.
[00:07:16.743] Kent Bye: Great. So in terms of the next steps, you know, like I imagine that the difficulties with something like this is that every little nuance change that you make, then you have to test it. And then if people who have already been playing it, they already are at a certain level of aptitude. And so how do you constantly tweak something like this where it's changing so drastically and being able to really do a lot of testing to get it to where you want it to be?
[00:07:43.722] Heather Kelley: One thing we are doing is we have a mode that we can put the game in where it will collect the statistics on the players that play, so it knows what kind of challenges you encountered, how successful you were, it knows where you crashed. It's collecting a ton of data, so when we turn that on, We can put it in front of people with a certain build and really sort of see, oh, in this build, we made this change, and it had this effect. Or even things about the different environments that we're developing, some of them have more visual effects like fog and bloom and things like that, and that also changes the gameplay. So essentially, it's recording all of that, and it's helping us sort of analyze what is working and not working so we can better assess and tweak that.
[00:08:33.190] Kent Bye: Are you visualizing that data in 3D and VR at all, or is it just in a giant spreadsheet?
[00:08:38.114] Heather Kelley: Right now it's in a giant spreadsheet, but we have dreamed about how we could visualize that, and in fact we'd love, speculatively, to be able to let players access some of that information, but we haven't really decided to do that for sure. Right now it's totally just like we look at a spreadsheet.
[00:08:55.043] Kent Bye: And I know in previous builds there is, you know, adding multiple blocks per each level, or the other option is to just add one block at a time, which you kind of get the sense of, like, how far did you get, how levels, but yet in the other build it was kind of meaningless to think about that if there was, like, multiple blocks. So I'm just curious if you are sticking with, as you progress through the game, it's just adding one block at a time.
[00:09:17.962] Heather Kelley: Right now it adds more if you're in higher levels and of course all of that it starts to change a lot faster when you do start adding more than one block at a time but that doesn't necessarily make it harder. It's hard to explain but you learn When you've been playing it for a while, the things that make a certain cluster harder or easier are not necessarily its size, it's more about how unique of a shape is it. Does it have a weird part that's sticking up in one corner, or is it really long? So, the fact that it's larger doesn't necessarily change, you know, you still have those facts present, whether or not it's a small cluster or a large cluster. So, that was one thing we learned, like it's not that just making it larger makes it harder. There are some aspects that we're also having to tweak, a lot about like the camera distance and stuff, because when the cluster gets really large, it changes your whole spatial relationship to the wall ahead of you. It all sort of is changing simultaneously and so we're constantly reevaluating the builds that we make to see what's working or not so we can make a version that doesn't frustrate people.
[00:10:25.822] Kent Bye: Just to take a step back and talk a bit about some of the unique features of Super Hypercube being in VR is that you actually have to kind of lean over and maybe you could talk a bit about that type of positional tracking and how it's a part of the game.
[00:10:38.881] Heather Kelley: Right. So the head tracking has been part of the game since the original. That was one of the very first things in 2008 that we added because we're interested in what stereoscopic games could really be. But we realized that usually there isn't anything much special that gets added with stereoscopic vision unless you have some kind of thing that also tracks where the eyes are and so like changes based on where you are positioned. So that's always been an important part of our design and It's because we wanted to get people really moving around and that was something we intended. So the whole idea that you can't see the wall unless you move is an intentional part of the design. It's not just like, oh, it's randomly, the cube is blocking your vision. It's like that was a core element of the design from day one is that as the cube gets larger, you really have to move your body. It's meant to be playing standing up or in some way mobile, not in a fixed chair.
[00:11:41.400] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think that was part of the thing that is really interesting about the Super Hypercube is that you could watch it on a 2D screen, but it's a lot different when you're actually in VR playing it because you really see the 3D objects right in front of you, right in the near field there, and your mind starts to really remember it as a 3D object and be able to spatially rotate it. And so yeah, I don't think this is necessarily really even a game that could work in 2D.
[00:12:07.010] Heather Kelley: Yeah, a lot of people have asked us if we're going to ship it for like just regular PlayStation 4 or things like that or other non-VR platforms and we're quite consistent that this game was meant for this medium. It has been since it was conceived and that's what's really special about it and we're definitely not going to try to do this in any other way.
[00:12:28.301] Kent Bye: Do you have any favorite stories of people playing Super Hypercube?
[00:12:33.931] Heather Kelley: Well we have some really good players and it's always really fun to have something that you made that other people just like their skill set is so honed in on what your game does that like they do stuff that you never imagined and we have luckily we have some of those people playtesting for us. because they will discover design holes that, like, we don't realize and help us solve those. And then it's, yeah, it's just really great also to, we were at Day of the Devs, for instance, and we've had some people come up that have been following the game for a long time or that have heard about it or saw, like, the trailers, and we're getting to check it out for the first time, and we're really into it. So I can't think of any, like, oh, so crazy, incidents or anything like that, but just, I guess, a lot of love, and that feels great.
[00:13:25.715] Kent Bye: Well, it sounds like these people that are so good can take the game to a level that maybe you as developers can't, and then once they get to that point, then they can see things that are a little bit too easy for them, and they need to be challenged a little bit more, is what it sounds like.
[00:13:39.012] Heather Kelley: That could be, and we are thinking that what would be really appealing for people that have that level of ability is the leaderboards that are going to be tracking your score. And according to your PSN ID, you can see how well you're doing compared to your friends, or also there's going to be a worldwide leaderboard. And also that there's going to be daily challenge, so everyone around the world is going to have the exact same sequence of cubes and walls, and that way be able to really compare themselves if that's what they're into.
[00:14:15.904] Kent Bye: And do they get to play that over and over again, or is it just like a one-time shot?
[00:14:19.785] Heather Kelley: Yeah, it's a one-shot daily challenge.
[00:14:21.846] Kent Bye: I see. Great. And it seems like otherwise it's a pretty procedurally generated game then.
[00:14:26.684] Heather Kelley: Yeah, it is procedurally generated, but we do have some constraints that we've set to make sure that the ramping is smooth. So it's not just completely random. It's going to be random within a set of constraints. So yeah, that's about the best I could describe that.
[00:14:45.320] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:14:53.109] Heather Kelley: Well, I wouldn't say I'm a total VR optimist or pessimist. I think I'm a pretty realist person. But I'm also reading, do you know the novel Rainbows?
[00:15:08.647] Kent Bye: For people who don't, maybe you could describe it a little bit.
[00:15:11.746] Heather Kelley: Basically, it doesn't even matter which novel because basically every science fiction novel that you've read has, well not every single one, but a large majority of cyberpunk novels all have some kind of cyberspace or VR type thing in them. And it really starts to feel like now, like, oh, we're actually approaching the technology that is like the backstory of all of these possible future histories where VR is just a daily part of our lives. VR and AR, whenever that sort of catches up. But yeah, seeing where it's at now is just exciting to be part of it and hopefully you know it's just the beginning we'll see some other amazing ways that it integrates and hopefully it won't destroy all of humanity and like I'm optimistic that it won't we've you know we're pretty resilient as a species so yeah.
[00:16:08.908] Kent Bye: Great well thanks a lot Heather.
[00:16:10.388] Heather Kelley: You're welcome thank you.
[00:16:12.260] Kent Bye: OK, so that was Heather Kelly of the Kokorami Collective. And yeah, the Super Hypercube is super fun. It's actually a game that would make me consider buying a PlayStation VR. I haven't put in my order just yet, but it's one of those puzzler games that I could see myself playing over and over again. And so I'm really, actually really excited for it. And yeah, another takeaway is that something that seems on the surface very simple as a game mechanic, there's all sorts of different variables that you could tweak and completely change the dynamic of the game over time. And to me, it was interesting to learn about their game design process, but also their method of collecting data and analyzing it and trying to correlate these little tweaks that they're making and the impact that it's having on the game and how people are able to play it. And I wanted to send a thanks out to a lot of the Patreon contributors that I've been getting. I have over 120 Patreon contributions right now, right around $795 a month. I'm going for $1,000 a month as the next goal and then beyond to continue to support this podcast. So please do consider becoming a Patron at patreon.com slash voices of VR
