Toy Ninja VR Movement Paradigm

Plane Mode - allows the Ninja to move along one axis parallel to the ground and to jump.  This is the movement mode used by the Toy Ninja alpha.  It works terrific with a fixed, isometric camera, but I never meant it to be used in the VR version.  Restricting movement to a predetermined path like this may work for side scrollers such as Action Henk, but it just doesn't work for Toy Ninja.  In VR we have a terrific sense of depth, and I think it would be silly to waste that depth by not allowing the player to explore it.  Unless we have a moving player camera (i.e. - camera on wheels) we restrict the Ninja to a small strip of real estate.  According to the Oculus Rift Best Practices Guide, as well as my own experiences, camera location movement increases the risk of motion sickness.  I may explore this mode or side-scrolling at a later time, but for now I see enough evidence to pursue other movement modes.

World Mode - allows the Ninja to move along both axes that are parallel to the ground and to jump.  This is an obvious extension to Plane Mode, but it isn't enough to give me an easy time controlling the Ninja in VR.  I tested this code to see how the new video game articulation point created by neck movement affects spacial reasoning in a video game player.  Personally, I found this mode required some unnecessary mental steps in figuring out which key needed to be pressed to go in the direction I wanted.  When I press 'go left,' I expect the Ninja to go left.  Following one world axis just did not feel right.  Having the Ninja far to the World space's left then necessitates that I press the down arrow key to make the Ninja move left relative to my view of it.  Bottom line: World Mode feels difficult.  Players who buy the consumer version of the Oculus Rift will expect mind-blowing experiences.  Those experiences will be hindered if they have to think about what button they need to press.

Cylinder Mode - allows the Ninja to travel in a circle around the player's camera and to jump.  This mode tries to adapt Plane Mode to the new articulation point I mentioned in the last paragraph.  Much like Plane mode, however, it feels restrictive.  Cylinder mode was meant to be a checkpoint in achieving the final initially brainstormed four movement modes.  I do not feel comfortable using it.  Pressing left, I expect the Ninja to go left!  Seeing it curve in a circle kicks at my brain in a negative way.

Cylinder Space Mode - allows the Ninja to travel in a circle around the player's camera, to move towards or away from the player's camera (therefore changing the radius of the cylinder), and to jump.  This, I thought, would be the winner for 3rd person VR platforming.  It moves the Ninja relative to the camera, and allows exploration of the full world.  Unfortunately, moving left and right in a circle kept it from feeling natural.  Just like World Mode, it did not feel easy to figure out where to go!  It is odd, I think, to hold the left button and go in a circle instead of continuing in a straight line.  The starting direction felt perfectly fine, but the circular path makes it difficult to platform in the world.  I set a few books in my test environment to create a platforming path, and the amount of time I spent lining up and thinking about the buttons I needed to press was just too much.