Abstract

Although virtual reality (VR) exercise has attracted attention as a factor in exercise habituation due to its mood-enhancing effects, its impact on brain function remains unclear. This study, involving 23 healthy university students, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore how VR exercise affects working memory, a key executive function, and its underlying neural mechanisms. Our findings indicate that a 10-min VR exercise session improved mood (arousal and vitality level) and working memory task performance (3-back task) more effectively than exercise or rest alone. Furthermore, the results confirmed that increased vitality from exercise and VR exercise interventions was associated with improved 3-back task performance. However, specific brain regions contributing to this enhancement remain unidentified. These results highlight VR exercise as the optimal exercise program for enhancing working memory function by increasing vitality level. These insights underscore VR’s potential as a novel exercise modality with benefits extending beyond exercise adherence to potentially preventing dementia and depression.

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Unwrap an instant library of varied VR experiences with our Black Friday game bundle! Hack, slash, and sling spells in the acclaimed neon-lit roguelike Until You Fall. Become a lethal cyber ninja in Sairento VR. Play chef to an enchanted forest in Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale, bend reality in the award-winning A Fisherman’s Tale, and much more, and help support SpecialEffect with your purchase!

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Although your first thought about World of Diving might be the act of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, it’s actually a game with a lot more depth. While a virtual reality experience about that type of recreational diving sounds like it could make quite a splash, this game is actually about exploring diverse underwater locations.

Gameplay consists of a range of mission-based activities, side objectives, and scenarios, including locating and salvaging shipwrecks, collecting treasures, and taking photos. Of course, once you get through enough missions, you can start exploring the watery depths on your own. You can also not only fully customize your appearance and gear, but also design and share your own content and underwater layouts. As with the missions, though, most of the good stuff has to be unlocked first.

While the underwater world is mostly original, you can eventually explore real-world wrecks at specific dive sites. These sites include the U352, a German submarine from World War II, the Bismarck, a German battleship from World War II, and the SS Yongala, an Australian passenger ship from 1903. And for good measure, there’s even a community-created wreck included, the HMS Tranquility.

A major hook with World of Diving, at least in theory, is that besides offering a robust single player experience, it also supports online multiplayer with up to four other people. A nice feature of this multiplayer aspect of the game is that it provides this support across all the platforms it’s been ported to, including non-virtual reality, and all of the various control schemes, including gamepad and mouse and keyboard. In theory, this wide-ranging cross-platform play greatly increases the chances of finding others to play with, but, as with most online-enabled games like this that aren’t blockbusters, that still doesn’t mean you’ll have any luck doing so. During my testing, for instance, I was able to find no other players available.

World of Diving can be played either seated or standing and can make use of the Vive controllers or a gamepad. Movement or grabbing objects is intuitive with either control scheme and pop-up radial menus help to keep item and feature selections quick and easy. Using the Vive controllers can make you feel a bit like Superman as you point your right controller in any direction you wish to move underwater.

Of course, this type of freedom of movement is not necessarily the best for sensitive stomachs. It can also be rather jarring when playing standing and half of your body ends up below the virtual floor. That’s not too surprising however, as your avatar is supposed to be swimming mostly horizontally, which is not a position you yourself can typically pull off when playing.

Visually, World of Diving impresses. While the character and sea life models are generally well done, it’s the environments, both above and below the sea, that really steal the show. There’s a level of detail here that you don’t typically see with this type of game.

Audio-wise, you’ll hear a lot of the expected environmental sounds, like seagulls when above the surface and the gurgle of water when below. Just as with real diving, you’re not going to be hearing much otherwise.

As far as virtual reality experiences go, it’s hard to top a game like World of Diving. It simulates an experience that a lot of us won’t get to do much, if at all, in our lifetimes, and then adds tons of extra play value on top of it. Although not perfect, World of Diving is the type of ambitious virtual reality experience we need to see more of. Hopefully this game, which was initially released back in August 2014 in an early state and updated multiple times since, continues to grow and evolve. It deserves to fulfill the full potential of the excellent foundation that’s already in place.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars.

World of Diving is available on Viveport or with a Viveport Subscription.

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Human trafficking is a profoundly serious subject. Even a simple discussion on the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, or other exploitative purposes needs to be handled in a delicate manner, let alone in an actual interactive experience built around the concept. While it’s easy to take issue with TRAPPED: A VR Detective Story‘s title and how it really doesn’t easily bring to mind the subject it’s based around, the virtual reality experience itself does succeed in delivering a powerful and respectful narrative story.

TRAPPED: A VR Detective Story tells the tragic story of 14-year-old Lisa, an average girl from a nice suburban home. Lisa’s life takes a shocking turn when she’s lured into trafficking by a boyfriend/pimp named Lumpy who she met online. As you go on this terrifying journey with Lisa, you need to explore the world around her, piece together clues from her past, and learn exactly how she fell into this abusive and dangerous situation.

This experience can be played seated or standing in a room-scale environment, with its sole input method using gaze rather than the motion controllers. By simply looking at locations that are ringed with yellow circles for movement and then objects capped by cubes for exposition, you advance the narrative. The semi-realistic visuals are really well-done, particularly in comparison to other types of educational virtual reality, and includes support for Vive Pro resolutions. The narration, music, and other sound effects are also well done, although there appears to be an occasional bug where the narration is sometimes too quiet in comparison to the music.

The narrative is broken into three major acts. You can’t proceed to the next act until you look at and listen to all of the objects and their relation to the story in the previous act. If an act ends before you gaze at all possible interactions, you need to restart the entire experience over again.

The first act takes place in Lumpy’s apartment, where Lisa is alone, and includes a flashback to a year earlier when she was in her family home and still reeling from her parent’s divorce. This act’s focus is on awareness and education about how to identify a victim.

The second act casts you as a homicide detective sent to the scene of Lisa’s last “date,” where she was murdered by her buyer. Your otherwise well-intentioned partner speaks to you throughout, but he repeats myths and outright falsehoods about trafficking that don’t apply to this or most other trafficking situations. Through your female avatar’s own words, you learn about the “Illusion of Choice,” which is a psychological trick where people convince themselves that children want to do these damaging activities. The reality is is that demand is the root cause of the problem rather than anything that the victims have done, which is the main takeaway as the act concludes.

The third and final act has you returning to Lumpy’s apartment. It’s here that you collect clues that connect Lisa to Lumpy. It’s also here that you learn how difficult it is to convict someone like Lumpy, as well as learn a startling revelation about the detective you’re playing and her own motivations for doing what she does.

Developed by Radical Empathy Education Foundation, or REEF, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing experiential education virtual reality applications to help students, educators, and organizations learn about important social issues, it’s little wonder that TRAPPED: A VR Detective Story employs a deft touch with a very sensitive subject. While this is rated as a Mature product and there are obviously frank discussions of sexuality and violence, there is nothing overt or exploitative in the telling of the story. About the only component that’s not filtered is the use of adult language, but that again is in service to the reality of the story, which is based upon a real case. 

TRAPPED: A VR Detective Story, proves to be yet another excellent example of virtual reality’s ability to educate in ways that traditional methods never could. Even though the actual interactivity is limited and it can be frustrating trying to look and listen to every object in a particular scene – particularly if you have to restart multiple times – by being front and center during key events of this tragic story, you gain a genuine empathy for the victims of these crimes and gain a clearer understanding of this almost unbelievable social issue.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars.

TRAPPED: A VR Detective Story is free for HTC Vive owners, and is available on Viveport (September 2022 note: This title is no longer available).

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Virtual reality has proven to be a valuable resource for organizations that want to help spread the word about a particular place, charitable cause, or social issue. There’s good evidence to suggest that gaining first-hand experience with a specific issue – even if that experience is virtual – can help deepen one’s understanding of, and empathy with, its subject. The Nature Conservancy, which is a charitable environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and whose mission is to “conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends,” has released THIS IS OUR FUTURE, The Nature Conservancy, in hopes that they can bring that same type of enhanced attention and focus to illegal fishing practices.

The premise is a simple one. Overexploitation of the world’s fish stocks is growing at an alarming rate, killing vulnerable species like sharks and turtles and robbing the economies of small pacific island nations. To help combat this, the Nature Conservancy partnered with the tech community to bring deep learning to the deep seas, hoping to transform a multi-billion-dollar tuna industry and ultimately create a world where nature and people thrive. By mounting cameras on fishing boats and using advanced machine learning that can track what is getting caught, overfishing might be prevented, and threatened and endangered sea life can recover without putting fishermen out of work. As an outgrowth of this effort, The Nature Conservancy and MPC VR teamed up to bring a guided film experience about both the problem and their intended solution to virtual reality.

THIS IS OUR FUTURE, The Nature Conservancy, takes you on a guided journey through a large-scale art installation where you can see the problems of tuna fishing in the Western and Central Pacific ocean unfold. As a refreshing change of pace for this type of experience, this is not 360-degree live video or gritty realism, but instead 3D models and artistic interpretations of the issue’s key elements.

Visually, THIS IS OUR FUTURE, The Nature Conservancy, is beautiful, with clean models, monochromatic color palettes, and majestic animations as you’re taken through the gallery. Audio is similarly moving, with epic music and professional narration by actor Kieran Culkin.

As you might expect, this passive room-scale experience can be enjoyed seated or standing. You will likely want to do the latter, however, as you’ll be able to take in more of the grandeur that way.

Control is as simple as it gets—there is none. Once you start THIS IS OUR FUTURE, The Nature Conservancy, the guided tour begins and all you can do is look around until it ends.

While there’s nothing here that takes advantage of the Vive’s feature-set, this free, surprisingly short experience still finds a way to be fulfilling, educational, and moving. THIS IS OUR FUTURE, The Nature Conservancy, easily meets its goal of educating and enlightening its viewers about the dangers of irresponsible tuna fishing practices and a possible solution to help solve the problem.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars.

THIS IS OUR FUTURE, The Nature Conservancy is on Viveport or with a Viveport Subscription.

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The human eye is an incredibly complex organ that reacts to light and pressure and is made up of 30 major parts. It obviously also allows for vision, providing for perception of three dimensional, moving images, with an ability to differentiate about 10 million colors. The Physiology of the Eye offers an educational deep dive into the mechanisms and inner workings of this critical organ, enhanced of course by the capabilities of virtual reality.

The Physiology of the Eye can be played seated or standing in a room-scale environment. Both motion controllers are used for input, allowing you to, among other functions, grab muscles, pick up subject objects, and rotate and scale the display. While the controls do take some getting used to, they do allow for fine manipulation of the content.

The app features two modes. The first, default mode, is a real-time, automatic six-part training course that guides you through the visual content, much like a good college lecture. The second mode, which can be activated at any time, is an interactive training mode. This mode allows the user to stop the lecture and choose an area they want to focus on for self-paced learning or reinforcement of information that might need another pass or two to fully grasp. Finally, the app includes an assessment feature that judges your learning comprehension through an interactive testing system, which really beats traditional exam formats. At the end of the virtual course, you’re provided with a final grade point average, or GPA.

Unlike some other educational virtual reality apps, The Physiology of the Eye’s presentation is top-notch. Visually, it’s striking, with high resolution models used throughout for its scientifically accurate representations of the components of the eye. Spot animations help to further elevate the visual presentation and increase understanding of a particular function or section of the eye. The voice over work is similarly clear and professional. About the only downside to the presentation is that you’re temporarily kicked out of the operating environment when a new section is loaded in.

While The Physiology of the Eye is no text book or coursework replacement for medical and optometry students, it does provide a unique method for a more well-rounded understanding of a complex subject. For everyone else who has an interest in learning about the eye, it would be a real challenge to find a more fascinating way to explore this subject matter. Through an app like this, virtual reality once again shows that it has an important present and future in not only entertaining, but also in educating.

While it’s generally well-known that the eye is incredibly complex, The Physiology of the Eye really helps to give this dense subject some much needed context. So even if before you started this app you might have already understood that the eye was a complicated organ, after several playthroughs you can also gain real insight into the how and why of its workings. For an educational app, it’s hard to do much better, particularly given how impressive its overall presentation and polish is.

Score: 5 out of 5 stars.

The Physiology of the Eye is available on Viveport or with a Viveport Subscription.

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Billing itself as the “television of the future,” The Dream VR promises region-free 360-degree video content. Both as producers and distributors, The Dream VR team has brought together an eclectic collection of videos. Since the development team is based in Barcelona, it’s not too surprising that the videos are rather Eurocentric, and in fact feature the occasional use of non-English text.

Designed for the Vive as a seated or standing room-scale experience, The Dream VR can be enjoyed in the smallest of spaces. Even the Vive controllers aren’t required, as you simply use Gaze to look at menu items to select them, and then, just like with regular television, more or less just sit back and watch the video. The main difference here is that with these videos you can usually look all around you as the action takes place, sort of like a more expansive dome theater experience.

The channel categories include: Foodie, Sport, Music, Kids, Entertainment, Foundation, Travel, Fashion, Influencers, and Art. The Foodie Channel shows you how to cook various dishes. The Sport Channel has an international soccer focus. The Music Channel showcases music festivals. The Kids Channel, which has no content as of yet, will focus on educational kid-related entertainment. The Entertainment Channel features news, interviews, trends, and more. The Foundation Channel has a focus on social problems, including related organizations, humanitarian help, and refugees. The Travel Channel showcases various sites of interest around the world. The Fashion Channel showcases various fashion events and catwalks. The Influencer Channel, which has no content as of yet, will highlight a variety of content from star influencers. The Art Channel showcases art pieces.

The actual video content is of mixed quality. Some videos are clearer than others and some are more professionally conducted than others (Be sure to look out for some uncomfortable looking people caught by the 360-degree cameras!). Since control is exclusively Gaze-based, there’s a persistent circled “D” within every 360-degree video. Looking at this “D” will bring up a menu to adjust settings and return to the main selection menu. Unfortunately, while necessary due to the lack of Vive controller support, it’s nevertheless quite distracting when trying to immerse yourself in a particular video.

The bigger issue is one of discoverability. Although the video navigation system is fairly logical, mostly sticking to radial menus and left-right arrows, it’s hard to get a sense of what most videos are before actually streaming them.

Since it’s content- rather than technology-centric, The Dream VR has been made available on most other virtual reality platforms. As such, there’s nothing here that really takes advantage of the Vive’s many strengths. That’s no doubt a big reason why, for instance, we’re stuck with having that big circled “D” in our videos rather than being able to simply press a button on one of our Vive controllers.

It’s definitely a solid idea to have a specially curated selection of 360-degree videos, but, there’s not that much content overall, nor content that’s necessarily broadly appealing. While The Dream VR promises more content and features for the future, right now, there’s not enough going on to make this a recommendation. In The Dream VR‘s favor, however, it is free, so it certainly wouldn’t hurt to try it for yourself, particularly if you’re a fan of slightly off-kilter Eurocentric content involving soccer clubs or fashion shows.

Score: 2 out of 5 stars.

The Dream VR is available on Viveport or with a Viveport Subscription.

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The Blue of Music, much like its developer, 3D-D.com, is something of an enigma. The developer is charging for what amounts to little more than a few minute long music video experience, with no promise of any more content to come. In fact, if you go to the developer’s Website, all you’ll find is a landing page with the following cryptic text: “We are experimental virtual reality artists, trying to harness the potential of this new dimension and technology. Currently we are experimenting with virtual reality, 3D animation and virtual art. We will be gradually publishing our work soon.” There’s also an offer to sign up for email announcements and several non-working social media links.

So, we have a mysterious developer and seemingly the only product that they’ve released to date, The Blue of Music. The description for this product is “A VR experience where you will be immersed inside an abstract world of music, dance and female energy,” which is followed by what amounts to a warning: “This is not a game but an experience choreographed with an [sic] excellent music.” While I don’t think there’s necessarily any deception intended on the developer’s part, the fact that they charge for a brief virtual reality concept video that seems little more than a programming experiment does raise an eyebrow or two.

The Blue of Music is designed for Vive or Vive Pro owners as a room-scale experience. One Vive controller is used to start the experience and then for nothing else thereafter. While it’s best to walk around your own room a bit for maximum effect, you don’t lose much by just sitting in your chair and taking it all in. Once the few minutes are up, at least for me, the program just ended after a brief display of text showing the credits and acknowledgment for the Creative Commons-licensed music. I had to exit out of the program manually to close it.

The sad part is is that I actually liked what little content there was. There’s a nifty, busy space theme with abstract shapes that fly about. The generic, likely off-the-shelf, female models used fit the theme well and had nicely choreographed dance animations timed to the music. I also felt the instrumental techno-like music selection itself was excellent, although again, something similarly pulled from an existing repository that anyone can have access to. While the developers did a good job of pulling other people’s creations together into a new experience, it still would have been nice to have had unique assets created for a commercial product like this.

If this was a demo, proof of concept, or a portfolio piece, I’d be far kinder to The Blue of Music. Unfortunately, the developers are charging real money for far less than what can be enjoyed in abundance for free. While I would definitely like to see more from this individual or team, I do hope that if they intend to charge for something in the future, what’s offered is a far more complete and polished overall experience than what’s found here.

Score: 1 out of 5 stars.

The Blue of Music is available on Viveport or with a Viveport Subscription.

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According to Wikipedia, a particle system is a technique in game physics, motion graphics, and computer graphics that uses a large number of very small sprites, 3D models, or other graphic objects to simulate certain kinds of “fuzzy” phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques. These are usually highly chaotic systems, natural phenomena, or processes caused by chemical reactions. Examples of such phenomena which are commonly replicated using particle systems include fire, explosions, smoke, moving water, sparks, falling leaves and rocks, clouds, fog, snow, dust, meteor tails, stars and galaxies, or abstract visual effects like glowing trails, magic spells, etc.

Inspired by the big bang, Singularity is one such physics-based particle system simulator that lets you interact with countless colorful particles to create glowing visual effects within an endless representation of the blackness of space.

Since this is an experience rather than a game, you can play it seated, standing, or room-scale. The high concept behind this title is that it’s an abstract and colorful representation of how gravity interacts with particles, and how the particles in turn interact with each other. 

Singularity starts out simply enough, throwing an explosion of colorful particles at you that you’re then able to do with what you wish. You can throw, attract (Gather Particles), slow down (Slow Motion), or manipulate the gravity (Suspend Gravity) of these particles, which in turn creates constellation-like clusters and star-like collections. Using the features assigned to each motion controller is kind of like having two galactic paintbrushes. 

Although mere colored dots, when set against the backdrop of inky black space, the particles look spectacular. Each of your manipulations is rewarded with a new type of glowing visual spectacle that can be paused at any time with the Suspend Gravity button. When you’re ready to create something else, use the Gather Particles button or buttons to attract some or all of the particles to your motion controller or controllers. Once gathered to your satisfaction, you can then release the Gather Particles button to let the particles dissipate, or you can use your motion controller to fling them throughout space. Using the Slow Motion button lets you enjoy a more leisurely flow of particles.

While there are no sound effects to accompany the particle manipulation, there is a single track of uplifting background music. Unfortunately, I was unable to get this music working on my test system, although I have seen no reports that my particular technical issue is a common one. Based on what I’ve heard from preview videos, however, the background music is a suitably uplifting and fitting backdrop to the creation of such spectacular visual art.

Although there’s not much to the Singularity experience, what’s there is a fun diversion from the more typical goal-oriented virtual reality play. Sometimes it’s nice to just relax a bit and simply enjoy the galactic scenery, whether you’re actively manipulating it or not.

Score: 3 out of 5

Singularity is exclusive to and free for HTC Vive owners, and on Viveport or with a Viveport Subscription.

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Meditation is probably as popular today as it’s ever been. In our stressful world of work, partisan politics, social media, always-on technology, and general hustle-and-bustle of everyday life, it’s no surprise that many of us seek out techniques for a daily reset. This mentally clear and emotionally calm state, where stress, anxiety, depression, and even pain can be greatly reduced, can be achieved through focus or mindfulness techniques. ReMind VR: Daily Meditation, offers a guided method for achieving this more relaxed state of being, which, thanks to the power of virtual reality, can help transform even the most novice practitioners into a more Zen-like state.

As you might expect, an experience like ReMind VR: Daily Meditation has minimal requirements, so it can be enjoyed by anyone with the base hardware and just about any size room. It supports Vive, Vive Pro, and Oculus Rift setups, and can be experienced standing or seated. In fact, as a further testament to its versatility and adaptability, one of the scenarios doesn’t even use the Vive controllers and can be enjoyed while lying down.

There are three short exercises, or scenarios, to choose from. The first, called “Letting Go,” places you on top of a high building overlooking a peaceful city landscape filled with skyscrapers. From this vantage point, you toss paper airplanes, watching them slowly glide through the air. This scenario is meant to represent and encourage the release of negative thought patterns, leaving stress behind, replaced instead by feelings of peacefulness, happiness, and freedom.

The second scenario is called “Drop the Habit.” In this scenario, you’re placed on the shore of a lake in the Japanese countryside and skip small, smooth rocks along the water’s surface. This exercise is meant to represent and encourage observation of how a clear mind can be disturbed by the impact of negative thoughts as the ripples extend across the water’s surface. In turn, you’re meant to learn how to remain focused and centered despite the presence of disruptive thoughts and feelings.

In the third and final scenario, “Infinite Lightness,” you simply observe changes as the sun slowly moves and the sky changes colors. This exercise is meant to represent and encourage transformation of our perspective and clearing of the multi-tasking mind as you maintain a forward gaze. This is also the only scenario that can be fully experienced without use of the Vive controllers and works even if you wish to lie down.

While ReMind VR: Daily Meditation is not the most attractive game, the clean, crisp visuals still suit the experience well. The soothing sounds and music are similarly effective in setting the mood.

Meant simply as a brief, regular meditation experience, ReMind VR: Daily Meditation, delivers in spades. You don’t need to be well-versed in meditation or meditative benefits to get full value out of this enjoyable, well thought out, experience. With regular usage, this really should be a great way to become more relaxed and mindful. And putting the meditative benefits aside, the three experiences make for a nice, relaxing change of pace from the usual goal-driven games or hot spot-driven educational titles.

Score: 5 out of 5 stars.

ReMind VR: Daily Meditation is available on Viveport or with a Viveport Subscription.

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