THE GAME

Memory thief is a Mobile VR game for Google Cardboard, GearVR, and Oculus Go, drawing inspiration from classic game ideas such as Spot the Difference and Kim’s Game. It is primarily aimed at ‘Hot Seat’ two player gameplay, but can be played singleplayer vs the computer.

The objective of this project is to get people used to immersing themselves into Virtual Reality and learn to utilise its benefits in a simplistic way by bringing a familiar concept to the new platform. The game will teach the user to be aware of the surrounding game world, requiring them to look up, down and all around, something that wouldn’t work outside of VR. We are using a familiar gameplay concept and bringing it to a new platform. This familiarity allows us to capture a market of people who would not be interested in otherwise complex VR games.

ACCESSIBLE VR

Memory Thief was designed as a medium through which people can be introduced to VR, utilising familiar non-computer game concepts through an accessible platform. Google Cardboard was chosen as the platform as it is, at the current time, the most accessible form of VR available, especially to someone with potentially little to no interest in computer games. The game was designed as a party game, something that could be played by a family or group of friends.

VR and Technology in Health

Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies have abundant and revolutionary uses in health and medicine, with notable breakthroughs recently in therapy for phobias, anxiety and PTSD making up just the tip of the iceberg. In VR the world is yours to create, analyse and control, providing great potential for developers to explore. In the development of Memory Thief, it’s potential for detection of early onset of Memory related issues became apparent, with the ability to analyse user data and compare against the baseline.

Dementia/Alzheimers Early Onset Detection

Through further research, it became apparent that tracking the users eye movements rather than using the centre of the viewpoint for gaze detection would be beneficial, as this data could be used as an insight into the time a user takes to identify objects. To provide this functionality, eye tracking VR headsets or addons to existing headsets could be used. Memory Thief’s familiar mechanics and game environment combine with cheap accessible technology to provide an easy and portable solution for data collection and testing for a wide range of ages and abilities.