The Longship — VR Cinema
Produced by The Viking Planet in collaboration with Ridley Scott Associates and the UK’s Dimension Studio
Experienced in Oslo, Norway ~ 2024
The Experience & How it Works:
At the Digital Viking Museum in Oslo, you show up at the VR film area at an appointed time (a schedule of VR screenings is posted) and are instructed by the host to find a seat. Once seated, you put on your VR headset, adjusting it as needed and confirm that the title screen is in focus. Then, the host begins the synchronous VR screening. It lasts approximately 20 minutes.
Why it’s Interesting, IMHO:
The Longship is a narrative VR experience that tackles ancient history, which covers two topics of personal interest.
Initial Impression & Critical Discussion:
While it sounds exciting to hear Viking tales and — better yet — embody the Viking sailor telling these tales, in reality, this experience felt a bit boring. The Viking sailor narrator told his story at a slow pace without much voice modulation. Perhaps this was a result of trying to appeal to a broad audience of tourists, many of which might not have English as their first language. Still, it made it far too easy for one’s mind to wander, especially in the first act when nothing was happening “on screen.” In the second act, there was stuff happening: fighting to be precise, but it was all one note. Once the fighting began, it continued. During it, there wasn’t much variety, suspense or escalation. And you, the viewer, aren’t able to do anything, which feels particularly strange since nearly everyone else on the ship is either rowing or fighting or both. This raises the question of whether having the viewer embodied as the Viking sailor was really the right approach, since it’s hard to believe that under those circumstances he really would’ve been doing nothing. Would it have been better to have a disembodied ethereal presence and witness him taking action of some kind (even if it was hiding)? Would it have been better to be embodied as him and be hidden? At least then, doing nothing would make sense. Or, would it have been better to have found a way to make the experience “participant” effectual POV and add some level of agency for the viewer?
(The author couldn’t help but wonder if the creators would have been well-served by using the environment and functionality already built by Ferd, available in the same museum. However, this presumes that Fred predates the film and that the museum commissioned both projects.)
Another noteworthy observation in The Longship has to do with the haptics of the experience. The seat the viewer sits in vibrates periodically. Most likely, this is intended to give a sense of the ship’s movement. However, the seat on which you are sitting in the ship is a bench with no back and the seat in which you are sitting in the VR theatre has a back. When the seat in the VR theatre vibrates, you feel it on your back and it feels like something must be going on behind you. This mismatch is jarring and confusing. When you turn around, nothing is going on behind you; no one hit your seat or bumped into you. Oddly, at one point, one of your Viking compatriots, who has been standing behind you, gets shot, however at that moment of the presumed violent encounter, there are no haptics at the back of your seat. That really would’ve been the time to use that effect. In a revised version of this experience, it would be worth considering whether it’s possible to just keep the haptics to the seat bottom (not the back) to have it more accurately reflect the situation on the ship; alternately, it would be worth considering whether it’s better to have bench-like seats in the VR theatre. In a truly ideal world, the swaying of the seas would be evoked by a gentle — or not-so-gentle — rocking of the seats and not by haptic vibrations.
Experiential Viewpoint Expression (E.V.E.):
Embodied (as various), 1st person visual, 1st person narrative, entity, mortal
What’s noteworthy about this experience is that even though it arguably has the same E.V.E. throughout, who the viewer is embodying changes. In the first “act” of the story, the viewer is someone sitting around a campfire listening to a former Viking tell his story. Even though you are living “your” first person narrative of sitting and listening to him, he is also telling his story in the 1st person narrative. Then, in the midst of his story, you are transported into the past — the second “act” — where you are given his visual POV. Now, you are embodied as the Viking sailor in his youth, witnessing a scene from the past play out in front of you while his story continues in voice over as 1st person narrative narration. Finally, toward the end, “you” — as the Viking sailor — are knocked out and, as a result, knocked back into the “present” where you are once again embodied as someone sitting around a campfire, listening.
Story Anchor:
When a former Viking sailor tells you about the adventures of his youth, you put yourself in his position as he recounts the story of when he went on a raid, and then once everyone else on his ship has been killed, he gets knocked out.
Pillars of Game:
Voluntary Participation — check!
Goal — to learn about the Viking experience.
Rules — stay in your seat, don’t talk.
Feedback — none.
Conclusion: This is not a game.
Who Should Experience This?
Those who like to listen to stories told around a campfire and enjoy scenes of fighting on ships.
