On Friday, we left Seattle on a beautiful late summer afternoon. Tonight, we find ourselves in La Serena, Chile, on a beautiful (but in a totally different way) late winter evening prepping for the opening of IMPAC4, the International Marine Protected Areas Conference.
As David Byrne once sang, How did I get here?
A year ago, we were very excited that two papers we helped to write had just been published in Aquatic Conservation (Wiley). The release event for the journal was held at the World Conservation Congress (WCC) in Honolulu, where we were showing our scuba diving simulation game, Infinite Scuba®, and its new VR companion, a 5-minute dive in Belize with Dr. Sylvia Earle.
We work hard to create a realistic scuba diving experience with real dive locations, real wildlife and behaviors, real dive science, and real gear, as well as opportunities for players to learn about the ocean and its environmental issues. Our conventional (Win/Mac) scuba diving simulation game has always been warmly received at ocean-related events. Our #VR dive, however, was generating a much stronger reaction, something far more emotional and enthusiastic than anything we had seen with the conventional game. “Wow!†Applause. “Congratulations!†Stunned silence followed by a huge smile and thumbs up. Tears of joy. Requests to dive again and again. And again. “This feels like I am really diving!†“This makes me want to learn to dive in the real world.†“I forgot I was here… I thought I was in the ocean.†A standing ovation. “Who built this? You must tell me.†(Some people seem genuinely surprised that the people showing the VR dive are the same ones who built it. Not sure what to make of that. :)
When we re-read the papers we had just published, we realized that VR wasn’t even in our plans when we had written them. I mentioned this to Dr. John Baxter, the journal’s editor, and he immediately said “It sounds like you need to do a follow-up. Want to write it?†We talked about trying to clear up the confusion in VR terminology and wondered what other directions the paper might go. I reminded him that we had been co-authors, not lead authors, on the other papers. I reminded him that none of us have our PhD. He said the deadlines would be tight. He was optimistic anyway, and said he thought we were up to the challenge.
He was right. (Of course!) It was a wild ride from last year to now, from the seed of a paper to the real, reviewed, published article. But, here we are! Our VR work keeps opening the coolest doors for us! Here are some of the other events where we have shown our VR dive and conventional game this year:
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Infinite Scuba™
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
Last Updated November 7, 2012
Thanks for checking out Infinite Scuba! We are excited to have you dive into our underwater world. We hope you have as much fun playing the game as we did making it. Now here’s our EULA.
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