Don’t get me wrong, Superhot is an amazingly fun game. The satisfying shattering of enemies, the manipulation of time that allows you to time to think but also act, and the intriguing settings that leave you asking “Why am I here?” all contribute to a truly immersive experience. The immersion is coupled with the fact that Superhot has great controls- for the most part. To defend yourself against the onslaught of bullets, grab a bottle. To do so, hold the controller and reach for the bottle until it’s highlighted. Once it is within range, press trigger. The gripping of the controller maps perfectly onto the “grabbing” mechanic of Superhot. Similarly, to shoot a gun, the button is also the trigger which is standard first-person shooter practice. However, there is one more mechanic: throwing. After grabbing an object such as a mug or a shotgun throw it by swinging your arm in the direction of your choosing and let go-, no wait, press the touchpad?
Throwing in Superhot VR is completely nonsensical. Pressing the touchpad, and therefore gripping the controller, is the exact opposite of the essence of throwing: letting go of an object to overcome one’s limits. Even when a player tries to understand the mechanic, by pressing the touchpad while swinging in a certain direction, the angle is completely unreliable. Speaking from experience, I always send guns, bottles, and glasses flying towards walls and ceilings. Perhaps it is entirely because of my lack of skill, however, based on the experiences of my classmates, there existed confusion and frustration on throwing in the game. Particularly, the need to throw an object makes sense, many opponents spawn at a distance and when you’re not given a gun or you run out of bullets, the anxiety induced of needing to act pushes you to throw. However, the unreliability of the mechanic simply wastes your time and wastes your object. Ultimately, throwing in Superhot is a wasted mechanic, and is detrimental to a player’s immersion.
Comparing the realism involved in the VR experience and the controls of grabbing and shooting, having incomprehensible controls for a mechanic established in the game reminds you that you are in a game. It forces you to remember that game designers and developers created this universe and created it imperfectly. The flaw in throwing doesn’t match the physics of throwing in the world, and Superhot in VR must fix this issue.
An idea: Superhot VR should take inspiration from Wii Sports Bowling. If Superhot is to include the throwing mechanic, it must put in practice correctly, therefore taking after a proper design. In Wii Sports Bowling, the controller is a Wii remote, which although different than the Vive controller in many ways, holds core similarities. Buttons on the front and the back, with an elongated shape that maximize comfort in gripping, allow the Wii remote to be compared to the Vive controller.
In Wii Sports Bowling the player throws a bowling ball by swinging their arm while pressing the B button and then releasing the button to release. These controls are sensical, the player is holding the object and then releasing their grip on the controller to release their in-game grip on the object. This mechanic would significantly improve Superhot's throwing function and consequently increase immersion. Unfortunately, the mechanic itself cannot be translated exactly because it rearranges the other, fantastic controls. For example, if Superhot required that the player held the trigger to hold a gun, they wouldn’t be able to shoot. And in the panic that is Superhot’s time manipulation, if the player accidentally let go of the trigger button while holding a cup, would the cup go flying in a direction as if they had swung it?
Therefore, I offer my own solutions, but as a novice in both game design and in the VR experience. Perhaps include the ability of Superhot to recognize the objects being held. This would be helpful such that when holding an object that is not a firearm, Wii Sport’s Bowling mechanic could be implemented exactly. Hold trigger to hold the object, release trigger to release the object; swing and release to throw. However, upon recognizing a firearm, a throw only registers if a swing is included.
Upon recognizing my naivety and ignorance, I understand that with an avatar that does not have arms, what counts as a “swing?” Yet I simply hope that, as a player, my desire for Superhot to stop neglecting the “throw” expresses my hope for a complete, immersive experience.
I definitely agree with the iffy throwing mechanic. I think there's definitely a little bit of immersion lost when every motion of the game matches so well with what your body is doing, but as soon as you go to throw (which is sort of a big part of the game), it's awkward and kinda clunky. I haven't played many VR games or tried VR on other consoles, so it'd be interesting to know whether or not other VR games with throwing mechanics function similarly, or better than Superhot does (or worse, perhaps?)
I had a similar experience playing Superhot on the Vive. Picking up objects, shooting, looking around and dodging were all super intuitive and functioned nearly perfectly. However, not only is the input for throwing not intuitive (using a button underneath the player's thumb combined with a natural throwing motion), but it was also difficult to aim. The latter may just be an reflection of the difficulty to accurately throw objects in real life combined with the inputs and detection from the Vive. The former could definitely be improved. In the past, I have played different VR games on an Oculus. The controllers on this VR console are different from those of the Vive. On each hand there are two triggers,…
I wonder if the difficult mechanic is intentional. It would be relatively easy (in theory?) to change the controls and integrate a more natural motion. But if you look at all the other artificial elements in Superhot, you find more and more artificiality. The glass humanoid figures, the way in which they shatter, the lack of any human elements besides your literal hands, all of these contribute to a sense of actually playing a game. As immersive as the experience was (I did, after all, crash into the wall), I always knew I was playing a game. Learning the throwing element solidified the sensation of buying into a new reality where I was playing a game and obeying the game's…
I agree with your point of Superhot's throwing mechanic being flawed. I noticed during the gameplay, specifically the round involving the throwing stars, the game specifically called for this mechanic to be utilized. However, this mechanic, was not a natural movement, as you pointed out. This made it a bit disorienting from the virtual reality aspect, and made the player sort of be realigned to the idea of this situation being artificial. I would imagine virtual reality games wanting to achieve as much of a facade of reality as possible. I noticed that in some throws, there was even a calculation of depth taken into consideration, so I wonder why the throwing mechanic was altered to force the player to…