Hi, I was not sure if this should go here or in the lounge. If I am posting this in the wrong place, please kindly move it to the correct forum.

After playing around with 2 Virtual Reality kits, I feel like I am finally ready to make a VR game. I was looking for some "cross-pollination" of like minded individuals. So I thought: "Wht not try to have a virtual brainstorm" on-line?

I would like to use this thread to bounce around some ideas back and forth. They always claim that "ideas are cheap", so I would like to use your ideas to help me find a VR project to build. I offer my own ideas in return. I hope to find or give a useful idea for a VR game.

I would like to build a simple game, and I am looking for some killer ideas.

My main observations about VR:

1. Any experience that does not involve sitting on a chair, tires me out really fast.

1a. It is preferable if I am only looking to the front. (no turning to the back, or even 90 degrees to the side)

2. Anything that moves too fast, tires me out as well.

2b. No fast roller-coasters or race cars.

3. I do not like fumbling around with controls when my eyes are covered.

3b. Interface should have one button at most, or no buttons (gaze tracking)

That being said, here are my initial ideas as to what I could make:

1. A slow endless runner (hang-gliding? [endless runner version of "N64 pilot wings"] )

2. A rouge like turn based dungeon crawler: You stare at your next destination, and the dungeons might be generated as front facing mazes, so that you don't have to turn.

2a. Since rouge based is paced slowly (turn based) , I can use the helmet mechanic I saw in the "blue marble" demo to let the user slowly look behind them without getting up from the chair.

3. A game based on a video clip. I saw this which is a really tripy interactive experience (not a game) . And I thought that I can make a similar gaming experience where you play through some song.

4. Virtua-Cop style game in VR?

5. A cliff climbing/Parkour game, where you advance by looking at your next foothold.

Those are the things I've come up with. I hope to start a nice brainstorm for ideas that I can use. Feel free to use any of my ideas from this post.

If there is a better place to start such a brainstorm thread, please point me to it.

3. I do not like fumbling around with controls when my eyes are covered.
3b. Interface should have one button at most, or no buttons (gaze tracking)

Oculus is unfortunately shipping with an Xbone gamepad -- but ~6 months after launch, they'll be releasing Touch.
HTC Vive is launching with Touch-esque controllers, and PSVR uses Playstation Move controllers (which again are very similar).

I got to play the Bullet Train demo with the prototype Touch controllers and the final (CV1) Rift headset, and the controls were fantastically intuitive. I was literally juggling pistols and grenades!
Games that are based around touching, pointing, and grabbing should do well on the above three VR devices.
The Touch in particular blows away the PS Move and current (prototype) HTC controllers... You get analogue squeeze control on your index and middle fingers, a thumb stick, and two big buttons per thumb - plus all the inputs have capacitive touch sensors, so the game knows whether you're resting your thumb/fingers on them or not (which you can use for coarse gesture estimation -- e.g. "thumbs up").

If you're targeting mobile VR (GearVR, Google cardboard), then yeah, look-based games are a much better idea.

4. Virtua-Cop style game in VR?

I can't wait for this genre to make a big comeback in VR!
The Touch/etc, mentioned above, are near perfect controllers for this type of game.
However, I'd love a Virtua-Cop style game that's designed to be played standing up (not in a chair...) so that you can take one step left/right to go in/out of cover, and also be able to duck behind cover. To get the same experience sitting down, you'd have to assign buttons to duck/stand, etc...
Although... I did play Alien Isolation in VR while sitting in a chair, and leaning/ducking was still awesome. You could press the crouch button to hide behind something, and then slowly stand up out of your chair to peek over the top. You could also lean sideways in your chair to peek around corners.

grenades

Ok, now that sounds like a perfect use for motion controls. FPS games are hit-and-miss with how grenade tossing works. Motion controls should give a good way to allow the user to fine-tune their throw exactly how they want, and depth perception should give excellent feedback for learning how hard to throw.

Try making something that depends heavily on depth perception. Maybe like a futuristic football game like Supraball, or a parkour-platformer like Mirror's Edge would be a good project.

One of the problems with so-called "3D games" is that the player sees 3D worlds projected on to a 2D screen. For twitchy first person shooters with hitscan guns, this isn't a big deal, because the player generally just has to place his cursor over the enemy and then click a mouse button to kill it. On the other hand, platforming and catching are rather tricky tasks in the first-person perspective because it's hard to judge depth on a screen, especially as the thing you're trying to land on or catch rapidly nears the viewport. I've always thought that it was easier to perform both of these things from the third person perspective, because this perspective makes it easier for the player to judge depth.