Richies Plank is a virtual reality game which simulated the experience of walking off a plank whilst at a high altitude. The game was released by Toast VR in 2016, the company stating "It (Richies Plank) delivers the strongest possible emotions in the shortest possible time" (Toast, 2020). The game starts by strongly situating the player in the virtual world, creating a strong sense of presence using visual and audio outputs. The player rides up and elevator and eventually reaches the top of the building, and has to walk off the plank. Even though the player knows that in reality, the plank they are standing on at that point is simply on the floor, the immersion created by the gameplay up to that point makes the drop below the plank seem real, creating very strong reactions of fear from players.
This game uses a physical object, a plank, to create a high sense of presence due to the haptic feedback of the physical plank emulating the virtual plank. This is made possible by the user inputting the specific dimensions of their own plank and the game cloning that plank into the virtual world. The game also uses sound for immersion, wind rushing around the player when standing looking down from a building at a huge height.
I choose this case study as the way Richie's Plank uses sensory input to create an incredible level of immersion is very impressive. It should how the use of one object having haptic feedback in VR can create such a believable experience for the player. As technology and VR develop's, the immersion possible to create in a VR scenario will grow immensely, creating incredibly real worlds, just like in Richie's Plank.
Toast VR | Richie's Plank Experience. (2020). Retrieved 2 September 2020, from https://toast.gg