StuckInSpace: Exploring the Difference Between Two Different Mediums of Play in a Multi-Modal Virtual Reality Game

With the rising popularity of Virtual Reality (VR), there is also a rising interest in co-located multiplayer experiences, as people want to play VR games together with their friends. As having multiple VR headsets is out of reach to the average consumer, we need to look into different possible ways of including multiple people in this play space. We have created a multi-modal co-located multiplayer VR game, Stuck in Space, that introduces a second player in two ways - one with a PC (the baseline that a lot of current games do), as well as a tracked Phone that can be used as a ‘window into the virtual world’. We have conducted a user study (n = 24) where we explore the difference in immersion and co-presence between the two versions using two questionnaires (IPQ and NMMoSP), as well as a thematic analysis of the subsequent interview data, from which 5 themes emerged. Surprisingly, we found no significant difference in co-presence or immersion based on the quantitative data. However, the qualitative analysis helps reveal one of the main reasons why that is - maintaining a mental model of the real world while also being in the virtual world makes it harder for the person wearing the headset to immerse themselves and feel co-present. From these themes and sub-themes we theorize that each of the two versions has positives and negatives that cancel each other out in the quantitative data, and for there to be a difference we would need to accentuate or change certain elements of the game. The results show that introducing a second player through a Phone is not detrimental in terms of co-presence and immersion and that it is a viable way of doing so, although certain design considerations would have to be taken into account to minimize the negatives.