Amber Blake: Operation Dragonfly (VR)
Produced by VR Coaster
Experienced at Europa-Park in Rust, Germany ~ 2024
The Experience & How it Works:
You arrive at the space and when your group is called, you walk into a side room where you put on a haptic vest, hand trackers, foot trackers and your VR headset. Then, you’re led into the main room of the experience and Amber Blake introduces herself and assigns you your task(s).
Why it’s Interesting, IMHO:
It’s a multi-player location-based VR game. This means that you can do it with your friends and see them and talk to them throughout. Also, while the experience takes place in a virtual world, it connects with physical things in the real world in a way that makes the experience even more immersive and convincing.
Initial Impression & Critical Discussion:
Being able to see and talk to your fellow player is a fun feature right from the start. There is also great satisfaction in the agency you feel when you shoot and it hits the target. The difficulty level is such that even someone not super experienced with first-person shooter games can have enough success to make it enjoyable.
There was a slight technical miscalibration that made the world not feel entirely trustworthy. This would be fixable with some back-end adjustments, so hopefully will not be apparent to future visitors.
The use of the physical world to strengthen the believability of the virtual world was particularly cool. Specifically, in the helicopter, being able to grab the overhead bar and feeling the ground vibrate were awesome.
The designers also used a clever approach to depicting a fight between Amber Blake and the bad guy at the end: the participants were only able to see the shadows of the two combatants, a function of where we were standing and also, likely, lighter lift on the graphics side.
HOT TIPS:
- Dress Appropriately. This experience has you wearing a VR headset, a haptic vest, hand trackers, foot trackers and walking around the space. While there’s no proscribed attire, wear something that will allow you to comfortably do what the experience requires of you.
- Bring Friends. This is a multi-player VR experience where you can see, talk to and work with your fellow players in real-time. You will see them—as their chosen avatar—throughout the experience. Invite someone—or several someones—to come with you, or be prepared to make friends with people you may be paired with; it’ll be more fun that way.
Experiential Viewpoint Expression (E.V.E.):
Embodied, 1st person visual, 1st person narrative, participant, mortal.
Story Anchor:
When Amber Blake enlists your help to take down a human trafficking ring, you’re tasked to help kill the bad guy with a tattoo at a cocktail party, and then when the guy with a tattoo turns out to be a decoy, you’re whisked off in a helicopter to help save victims of human trafficking.
Pillars of Game:
Voluntary Participation — check!
Goal — to take down a human trafficking ring. More specifically, in the first level: to kill people; in the second level: to find something to disguise your gun; in the third level: to find and shoot the guy with a tattoo; in the final level: to have Amber’s back (with gunfire) as she finds and releases human trafficking victims.
Note: This experience offers players the chance to be on the red or the blue team. We only experienced being on one of the teams and our write up reflects that. The other team likely had some different experiences. Both teams work together in the last level when Amber is freeing the victims.
Rules — you can move and touch things and shoot.
Feedback — people die when you shoot them, things react when you touch them. Additionally, there is a scoring system that tracks your number of kills.
Conclusion: This is absolutely a game.
Who Should Experience This?
People who like first-person shooter games and/or spy thrillers.
