0:00
foreign
0:07
go into the nitty-gritty can you do like
0:09
a little introduction to us tell us a
0:12
bit about yourself your company I know
0:14
that you're a main lead programmer but
0:17
you're also a CEO so I imagine it's a
0:19
smaller company to tell us a little bit
0:21
about how it started sure so uh my name
0:24
is Michael polis I'm the founder and
0:26
lead programmer for sonatic Arc we're
0:29
based in Bellevue in Washington in the
0:32
United States so we're working on a
0:34
couple projects right now primarily uh
0:36
finishing up work on zombies Noir which
0:39
is a mixed reality game and that
0:42
launched actually last week in Early
0:44
Access on the Atkins Quest 2 app lab and
0:47
you know this chance will be important
0:49
as other Platforms in the future but
0:50
that's our primary target right now just
0:52
trying to get feedback out there about
0:54
the game
0:56
so
0:58
um I think this is an idea that has been
1:01
in the air for so long the mixed reality
1:04
thing and we've seen a couple of
1:07
examples and I still see a very
1:09
interesting examples of
1:11
how this can be
1:13
done in an entertaining way and how you
1:16
can build an entertaining product around
1:19
it so before we're gonna go into
1:21
thinking about it in a broad way can you
1:25
tell us a bit about how do you approach
1:27
this in your game and what can be done
1:30
in your title so I guess obviously the
1:35
first thing people think of are should
1:36
think of in mixed reality moving forward
1:38
is basically combining like the real
1:40
world with the virtual world so what we
1:44
do is uh with the I guess Quest 2's room
1:47
setup feature you're able to basically
1:50
construct your room with walls and map
1:53
out Furniture to basically allow you to
1:56
interact with those elements what we do
1:58
more specifically though is we let
2:00
players uh place door doorways in the
2:04
game itself on your walls in your room
2:06
so what that means is that your room is
2:09
essentially acting as a portal for
2:12
zombies to come from their world into
2:14
our world so what you'll see is once you
2:16
place these you know door portals on the
2:18
wall you'll see the zombie world out
2:20
there and then they're going to come in
2:22
from their world into our world and
2:24
that's all going to
2:26
um you know work with the icons Quest
2:28
2's occlusion system
2:31
um there's no like stretching or
2:33
anything it all feels very natural and
2:35
realistic which is very cool
2:37
so um we talked a bit about
2:41
how it works in your game and we have
2:45
seen a lot of examples of how it's done
2:47
differently like probably one of the
2:50
most prominent examples we've seen
2:52
recently was when a guy turned his whole
2:56
house into like a SWAT uh simulator
2:59
where he was just doing you know like a
3:01
ghost recon kind of style game and there
3:05
was like his sofa became the cover he
3:08
would you know Traverse his and shoot
3:10
like guys that were attacking him
3:14
um
3:15
from from what you see just on the
3:18
purely on the side of like when the
3:20
project is done it seems like it's uh
3:23
very easy to implement and my question
3:25
for you is
3:27
how difficult and challenging it is from
3:31
a technical standpoint to create uh like
3:33
a mixed reality title because there are
3:36
a lot of elements that you don't really
3:38
think about when you build your you know
3:41
like a virtual title where everything's
3:43
designed inside the engine and here you
3:46
have a lot of different other things
3:47
like what are the things that are very
3:49
different here I think more so than from
3:53
a technical perspective a heart one of
3:55
the hardest things is the design
3:56
perspective
3:58
um I guess maybe we can start with the
3:59
technical issues so it really depends
4:03
what you're planning to do with a mixed
4:04
reality title so what is nice is you
4:07
have so many things built in
4:09
automatically from the Oculus Quest 2's
4:12
you know room setup feature which just
4:14
helps you you know work in this mixed
4:16
reality space so that that part is
4:19
actually pretty simple it gets a lot
4:21
more difficult once you start needing to
4:23
have different uh I guess specifications
4:25
for every single type of thing you're
4:28
working in are working on so if you want
4:31
your walls to be different from your
4:32
ceiling different from your floor
4:33
different from your furniture all of
4:36
those things can be done fortunately but
4:38
it is difficult to make each of them
4:39
work correctly 100 of the time
4:42
um
4:43
and then on top of that if you're doing
4:45
anything where you're you know severely
4:48
changing the I guess what you would say
4:52
um like the art of uh stuff that can
4:55
also become a little bit challenging to
4:57
work with so
4:59
um you need to make sure that the size
5:00
specifications are mapped out correctly
5:02
which you could probably do with some
5:04
scaling
5:05
um but we have found in our experience
5:07
that sometimes things from the API don't
5:10
map out one to one to what you would
5:11
expect so it can take a little bit of
5:13
finagling to get that to work
5:16
um let me speak on the design side of
5:18
things however I think the hardest part
5:20
is finding just a way to make playing in
5:24
your house interesting
5:26
so with a normal VR title the first
5:29
thing that's going to come to mind is
5:30
you know you have this Infinite Space in
5:32
the game world and the game engine it's
5:34
really up to you as the the game
5:35
developers to make that space fun but
5:40
um as a mixed reality title we have to
5:43
make sure that every single player's
5:45
room is fun to play in it doesn't matter
5:47
how big or how small we need to make
5:49
sure that every size of room with every
5:52
set of furniture is going to be fun for
5:54
the player and I think that is one of
5:56
the biggest constraints
5:58
um in developing a mixed reality
5:59
experience that has caused us the most
6:02
trouble
6:03
we've seen some examples where mixed
6:08
reality is kind of linked to
6:10
mobile devices and that's kind of like
6:13
my uh
6:15
that's where we see a lot of interest
6:17
from investors and companies and you
6:20
know trying to blend in the real world
6:24
and
6:26
you know kind of the virtual and
6:28
one of the very fun things I've seen
6:30
well the first example is obviously the
6:32
Pokemon franchise how it went uh you
6:36
know viral and worked out that way but
6:40
the other interesting example that I've
6:41
seen recently is the stuff that guys at
6:45
vadam are doing so it's like
6:47
v-a-t-o-m and
6:50
they're kind of like this complex
6:52
startup where there are like Virtual
6:54
Worlds and nfts and a lot of other stuff
6:57
but one of the coolest things that
6:59
they're doing is that
7:01
they kinda distribute this stuff the
7:05
nfts and their little objects
7:08
kind of scatter them around geography
7:11
and then you can walk around similar to
7:13
like Pokemon go and try to check them
7:17
out with your app and then you can do
7:20
the same you can take this you know you
7:22
know virtual items or whatever and you
7:24
can scatter them and do like this crazy
7:26
treasure hunt all over
7:29
um how do you feel about the
7:31
possibilities of mixed AR and mixed
7:36
reality in general
7:38
with mobile devices and with
7:41
traditional stuff like The Meta is doing
7:45
in terms of like Hardware do you feel
7:48
like you have to use
7:51
virtual goggles basically to make it
7:54
work 100 or do you think stuff can be
7:56
done with other tools like mobile you
8:00
know mobile devices for example
8:03
that's a good question um
8:05
uh obviously right now using a VR
8:07
headset is the way a lot of things are
8:09
mapped out and that's just because
8:11
that's what's available on the market I
8:13
think that it's only a matter of time
8:15
until we see things like mobile devices
8:17
also having similar capabilities and I
8:20
think that once that's available on both
8:22
your standard Android devices and iOS
8:25
devices that will see a lot of
8:27
developers taking advantage of that and
8:29
like you were giving the Pokemon go
8:30
example I think it'd be very cool to see
8:33
you know like if Pikachu's there on your
8:36
sidewalk that Pikachu is actually on the
8:39
sidewalk and you can move your phone
8:40
around and actually keep Pikachu in that
8:43
you know same location so I think that
8:46
once we see you know those tools being
8:48
offered we'll see developers starting to
8:50
take use of them and I think that you
8:52
know possibilities are endless I don't
8:54
think there's a reason why we have to be
8:56
stuck on VR headsets only
8:59
and um when I saw the trailer for the
9:03
game I was really excited because it's a
9:06
for me because I'm a gamer with uh you
9:10
know coming so I was born in the 80s so
9:12
I've played like a lot of different uh
9:13
generation I saw games evolve
9:17
um it's a very different experience when
9:21
you see this kind of mix between the
9:25
real thing that's around you and also
9:27
the virtual elements there and from your
9:30
perspective as a developer
9:32
why do people like it so much like what
9:34
do you see it does it give more
9:37
engagement to the user does the user
9:40
feel kind of more in the you know in the
9:42
moment when he's having experiences like
9:45
that like what are like the things that
9:46
really trigger with the user
9:57
felt the same thing when they were kids
10:00
um just you know playing with like toy
10:02
guns and weapons like bows and arrows
10:04
just you know make-believe as kids right
10:07
but to sort of have that make-believe
10:09
come to real life right it's kind of
10:12
what this you know mixed reality is
10:13
doing so when you're literally shooting
10:16
zombies in your headset
10:19
um it's kind of like that question of
10:20
how would I survive in a zombie
10:22
apocalypse and with mixed reality it's
10:26
you know very realistic so when you
10:28
physically move around in the game world
10:30
or sorry I should say in real life which
10:33
is the game world now because it's the
10:34
same thing they're mixed you can
10:36
actually Dodge zombies right so if the
10:38
zombie's right next to me in my room I
10:40
can physically move to the back part of
10:42
my room to get away from the zombies I
10:44
don't have to worry about using a
10:45
joystick to move around or change my
10:47
position because it's literally my body
10:50
that affects that and I think that's one
10:52
of the most engaging things about the
10:54
game itself and just mix reality games
10:56
in general is that ability to have like
10:58
this very realistic experience that
11:00
really elevates you know vr's already
11:03
been called realistic but to really
11:05
Elevate that realisticness to another
11:07
level
11:09
Michael so we often hear this when we
11:13
talk about
11:14
mobile
11:16
um
11:17
and VR games especially that this is a
11:20
little bit of a
11:22
isolating experience like the you put on
11:25
your goggles and you kind of hide away
11:28
from the world and even like from the
11:30
outside it does look kind of creepy
11:32
right if you've seen this image where
11:34
where you know Mark Zuckerberg is
11:37
walking around this uh Hall with a bunch
11:40
of people kind of wearing those goggles
11:42
it does look like it's not a very nice
11:44
thing but as people from the industry
11:47
and people who kind of know how it works
11:50
we know that it can be a lot of fun when
11:52
you're playing with friends and it's a
11:54
it's a it's a different level of
11:56
Engagement when you're in this virtual
11:59
world and you're in VR headset in your
12:02
opinion when do we
12:05
start seeing kind of more of those
12:08
multiplayer experiences where it's not
12:11
just me and the headset but maybe it's
12:14
you know my wife was a AR machine like
12:18
it can be maybe just some just glasses
12:20
regular glasses or maybe augmented
12:23
glasses or maybe some mobile phone and
12:25
so on do you feel like there is
12:27
a need for this kind of experience or
12:29
maybe it's just
12:31
that on this platform I want to just be
12:34
alone and kind of work this way
12:36
I think there's always going to be the
12:39
desire for both types of experiences
12:42
um similar to how I believe that will
12:43
always have traditional gaming I don't
12:45
think VR is going to you know deprecate
12:49
you know console gaming slash PC gaming
12:51
I think they'll coincide
12:53
so in the same way I think that you're
12:56
going to have both single player mixed
12:58
reality experiences as well as
12:59
multiplayer mixed reality experiences I
13:02
think with mixed reality being such a I
13:05
guess you'd say it's in its infant
13:06
stages right it's very young it's a new
13:09
technology
13:10
um it's really only a matter of time
13:12
until developers start to try you know
13:14
multiplayer experiences and
13:16
cross-platform experiences like you were
13:18
saying maybe one person has their
13:20
headset on someone else is using their
13:22
phone
13:23
um we've seen some games like that on
13:25
Steam where some players play with a
13:27
game like a traditional game controller
13:28
other players play with the VR headset I
13:32
think developers will have to experiment
13:33
with this in the upcoming years and sort
13:35
of see what works and what doesn't
13:37
um I would love to say I can predict the
13:40
future uh I don't think I can of course
13:42
but I would expect that we're going to
13:44
see a lot of multiplayer mixed reality
13:46
experiences in the future because I
13:48
think that's really going to bring mixed
13:51
reality to another level past where
13:53
we're already at I think that's to me
13:55
one of the most exciting things
13:58
um I have this question and we're kind
14:01
of slowly starting to drift away just
14:03
from mixed reality and more into the
14:05
realm of VR in general and kind of how
14:10
we're going to perceive games because
14:12
sadly we're or not sadly we're kind of
14:15
moving to the end of the year now and
14:17
it's almost September we'll only have a
14:19
couple of and it's time to kind of start
14:22
thinking about what's going to happen in
14:23
the future and you mentioned that you
14:25
can't really predict it but let's try to
14:27
just fantasize a little bit when
14:31
um when you think about this whole
14:32
concept of metaverse and not just in the
14:36
terms of that you know Facebook is doing
14:38
but you know Neil Stevenson kind of uh
14:42
metaverse idea William Gibson kind of uh
14:45
idea of the virtual world
14:47
um from your perspective as a developer
14:49
and the person who's been working a lot
14:51
with kind of this mixed reality Vision
14:54
where do you think we're gonna start
14:57
seeing the first adoption of this High
15:00
concept
15:01
what are the spaces in our world where
15:04
this would benefit they would benefit
15:07
tremendously if they had another layer
15:09
kind of on them
15:12
I think that's like a really open-ended
15:14
question of course and to be frank even
15:16
though I'm developing games for you know
15:18
the quests and the things that are in
15:20
mixed reality I still think the concept
15:21
of metaverse is a little confusing to me
15:24
especially with how the term is thrown
15:25
about around so much
15:27
um and I think uh it's also been
15:30
interpreted in different ways depending
15:31
on who you're talking to
15:34
um so I guess depending on you know what
15:37
sort of question or what sort of answer
15:39
you're looking for there could maybe
15:41
change what I'm going to answer with but
15:43
sort of just start I guess some ideas
15:46
that I would have just for how I would
15:48
like to see this concept of metaverse
15:50
taken in the future is being able to
15:53
really you know again I'm using the word
15:55
Elevate here but to like Elevate things
15:57
that already exist to another level so
16:00
I think in a way in the future if we're
16:03
at the point where people can just wear
16:04
glasses instead of a whole VR headset
16:06
that would be really easy and much more
16:09
accessible for people but I can imagine
16:11
if you're walking around at your local
16:12
shopping mall or maybe you're at like a
16:14
concert venue just having these mixed
16:16
reality elements could probably have
16:19
some sort of interaction between you and
16:21
everyone around you or like at a concert
16:23
you and maybe the person who's running
16:26
the concert
16:28
um just having more ways to interact
16:30
with the real world in this virtual
16:33
world I think that sounds very exciting
16:35
to me personally
16:37
when
16:38
um thank you so much for the answer and
16:40
I know that we can't really predict the
16:42
future here or say what's going to be
16:45
but it's nice to see
16:47
projects like yours where they kind of
16:49
blend this uh border this thin line
16:53
between what's real and not real and
16:55
kind of I think it's a very interesting
16:57
way of looking at it and
16:59
from my perspective a lot of companies
17:01
which are much bigger they're they're
17:04
thinking in the same direction they
17:06
think like okay uh you walk around the
17:09
store and you kind of feed more stuff
17:12
into you I'm not sure if it's a good
17:14
thing or bad or how do you approach this
17:16
but
17:18
um my next question is kind of connected
17:19
with the implementation of this
17:22
technology and the challenges of the
17:24
development so
17:26
when you're thinking about a game like
17:28
yours right when you're thinking about
17:30
this blending of real and virtual what
17:34
are the specific technical skills that
17:38
that you're looking for from Engineers
17:39
or artists is it very different from the
17:43
production of a traditional game or
17:46
maybe it's kind of the same the skills
17:49
are the same and the tools are very
17:51
similar
17:52
I think there's a lot of overlap with
17:54
traditional game development but I think
17:56
it does require a much different mindset
18:00
from the design side so I think that can
18:02
be the most difficult part is when
18:04
you're working in a VR game you need to
18:06
think of it from a design perspective
18:08
differently from a traditional game and
18:10
then with mixed reality you have to
18:12
think of it even more separate from
18:14
traditional games because it's already
18:15
different from your VR games right so
18:18
like I was given the example earlier
18:19
when you literally have to move around
18:21
in your real space you also have to
18:23
account for that and of course on the
18:26
engineering side you do also need to be
18:29
able to understand like you know how are
18:31
we going to implement these mixed
18:32
reality elements and so forth which is a
18:35
little difficult but I don't think it's
18:37
anything uh that you're you know I guess
18:41
mid-level or above software Engineers
18:43
couldn't figure out I think it's pretty
18:45
accessible
18:46
but um artists for example will need to
18:49
optimize there are a little bit better
18:51
just uh because there is that limitation
18:54
of frame rate in the virtual world
18:56
especially when you're mixing in um you
19:00
know pass their elements as well which
19:02
has a little bit of frame rate overhead
19:04
so just think about like you take your
19:07
traditional stuff and you have to make
19:09
it a little bit better essentially to
19:12
handle this mixed reality space but I
19:14
will say I think it's still accessible
19:16
enough for the average developer I
19:18
wouldn't say it's too different
19:21
do you feel like we're gonna still
19:23
because a lot of this optimization stuff
19:25
is still kind of connected with the
19:27
hardware requirements that we have in
19:29
the both and like headsets and the
19:32
mobile devices although they are made
19:34
becoming much more powerful they're
19:37
still kind of lagging
19:38
behind you know powerful stations that
19:42
you could have at home and my question
19:44
is do you think there is another way of
19:47
just kind of rendering the whole thing
19:49
do you do you feel like we'll see more
19:52
streaming Technologies taking place or
19:55
do you think maybe some
19:59
older Technologies might pop up so let's
20:01
say you know webgl or something like
20:03
that do you feel like like it's a viable
20:06
option when you think about the delivery
20:08
of those experiences or do you think
20:10
it's still just going to be client
20:11
server and when you need to build a game
20:13
and it has to run on some Hardware that
20:16
you have on a platform
20:18
uh I'm not sure if I fully understood
20:20
the whole question there but uh I I'm
20:24
sorry could you actually repeat that one
20:25
more time I just want to make sure I'm
20:26
answering it yeah like when you're
20:28
building this VR thing right
20:30
um
20:31
do you feel like you could deliver it in
20:33
a different manner like for example you
20:36
can stream the game and then it will be
20:38
available on a larger number of devices
20:41
or maybe you can do a webgl client and
20:45
you know like a webgl page I know it
20:47
still requires some Hardware but
20:50
do you feel like it's a viable option or
20:52
do you still think you know just build a
20:54
game let the player download it optimize
20:56
it to a certain
20:58
preferably the same kind of platform so
21:01
it's not really a lot of variety what is
21:03
like the the better option from the
21:05
developers then so
21:13
download capability to be an option
21:16
there are a couple other sorry sorry
21:18
when I say download I was actually
21:20
referring to streaming I don't see
21:22
streaming as being viable for this
21:24
um and there's a couple reasons for that
21:26
I think the biggest one is the input
21:28
latency
21:30
um that would be really big in a VR game
21:32
and that's going to take a long time I
21:34
think until we see very very efficient
21:36
streaming options for games especially
21:39
on VR headsets
21:41
um and as you may know like there's
21:42
definitely issues with nausea for VR
21:46
games I believe that would also probably
21:48
correlate with Mr
21:49
but um another one being that things
21:53
like the pass-through which currently
21:57
is all handled on your own device until
22:00
the streaming options have like a back
22:02
and forth setting for game streaming
22:05
um I don't know if that would be
22:06
functional so so just give you a little
22:08
bit of example here
22:10
if we're running all of this passive
22:12
data on our own device that would then
22:16
have to be passed up to wherever the
22:19
game is running from on the server and
22:21
then the game day would have to be
22:22
passed all the way back to the client
22:25
um and then we have to sort of render in
22:27
a specific order which just might not be
22:29
feasible for game streaming at least at
22:32
this point in time it also sounds like a
22:34
little bit of a headache from a
22:35
developer standpoint I do think the
22:37
simply just download the game onto your
22:40
device is probably our best option for
22:42
now at least for VR and Mr games but I
22:45
think you know
22:46
like we said you know we can't predict
22:48
the future so we might have some good
22:49
stuff coming out in the future but we
22:52
won't know until it happens
22:53
all right so it's time for our uh flash
22:56
pull so
22:58
um I'm just gonna start and we'll see
23:00
how it goes
23:03
all right so
23:05
uh what's your favorite game of all time
23:09
uh Super Smash Brothers
23:12
so what are like the most underrated
23:15
games that you can name
23:16
yeah
23:18
I know it's a flashable I should think
23:20
of something faster I can't think of
23:21
anything off the top of my head
23:23
um
23:25
Android is a strong word here
23:30
I really enjoyed the uh game Fantasy
23:33
Star Universe it wasn't amazing but uh I
23:36
enjoyed it a lot that was MMORPG from
23:38
mid-2000s
23:41
what in our uh video game industry uh
23:45
fascinates you what are the things that
23:47
Fascinate You I think just seeing the
23:49
creativity from all the different
23:51
developers out there and constantly
23:53
seeing new I guess new experiences is
23:56
what I'm looking for
23:58
what's the coolest or funniest fact
24:01
about you as a gamer
24:03
uh I barely play games anymore because I
24:06
spent so much time making them are you
24:08
like uh are you like a sore loser when
24:10
you're playing a Counter-Strike or
24:12
something like that no no I'm not
24:15
I used to be a little bit worse
24:19
what did your parents think about video
24:21
games and your career choice uh they've
24:25
always been supportive of me actually
24:26
which I have to be very thankful for
24:29
I I think it's also
24:31
um kind of a mark of time because I
24:34
guess when my mom thought me playing
24:36
video games just thought I was just
24:38
wasting time
24:39
um
24:40
uh so they're kind of supportive and
24:42
they support you now as well
24:44
um
24:45
so if you could do one job
24:48
to the end of your lifetime what would
24:51
it be
24:54
game development honestly just making
24:56
games that's my favorite job I've ever
24:58
had and it still is all right well thank
25:02
you so much for joining us Michael it
25:03
was very fun talking to you
25:05
um I will leave the links in the
25:08
description to this video and you can
25:10
check the website for more links to your
25:13
game and if somebody wants to join your
25:15
team maybe they can send you an email or
25:18
contact you on social media or through
25:19
your website so you can maybe find some
25:21
more teammates alright thank you so much
25:24
thank you girl it's been great thanks
25:27
for enjoying another episode of the 80
25:29
level Roundtable podcast
25:31
upcoming episodes on the 80 level
25:33
website at 80. LV join our career site
25:37
at 80.lv RFP
25:41
and share our podcast with friends and
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25:47
[Music]