Come to SXSW to play YUKI’s brand new Mixed Reality Mode, YUKI MRcade, soon to be released as a free update!
The award-winning Brazilian indie XR developer and publisher ARVORE is happy to announce that their game YUKI will soon receive a new mixed reality mode, YUKI MRcade (teaser), as a free expansion for the main game. Thanks to a partnership with HTC VIVE, this new mode will be showcased at the upcoming SXSW Festival 2023 (Booth 201, see location details below) running on the cutting-edge HTC VIVE XR Elite headset. YUKI is a VR game where you will use your hands and body to battle your way against fierce enemies, blending two popular genres: bullet hell and roguelike. Holding a toy action-figure, fly through a kid’s imagination and dodge an infinite barrage of bullets through amazing environments… With YUKI MRcade, all those enemies will be invading your own house!
The brand new Mixed Reality mode takes the YUKI experience to the next level. With this free update, you can bring the fantastical world of YUKI into your own living space, using your own hands and body to battle fierce enemies in real time. Imagine the thrill of seeing virtual portals open up in your living room, and enemies emerge, ready to attack. The Mixed Reality update introduces a completely new gameplay mode to YUKI with a redesigned gameplay, new enemies and challenges.
“YUKI’s MRcade Mode is a dream come true to our dev team. Since day one back in 2020, we always wanted to somehow explore a 360 gameplay. We knew it would be a complete different experience, with new creative challenges in every aspect of the game. When we had the green light to create the Mixed Reality mode we knew what to do and the result goes way beyond what everyone expected in many levels. It’s a complete new approach to YUKI, a new way to explore your room and your awareness. I’m sure YUKI and XR players will have an amazing experience” – Kako, YUKI’s Creative Director
The 3 Main Challenges in the Creation of YUKI MRcade
This mixed reality adaptation YUKI MRcade was an exciting opportunity to experience completely new design challenges that came from translating an existing VR gameplay into Mixed Reality. The ARVORE team had to rethink and explore several design areas to create a new a fun and engaging experience that they hope players will enjoy:
Translating the Universe to MR – In keeping with the game’s core fantasy, the team kept the original theme and adapted game elements to fit the new and reimagining ones.This allowed players to immerse themselves in the game’s story, identify elements they were already familiar with, and explore the world in new and exciting ways. The game had to still feel like YUKI, but fit within each user’s home and space that was now a new dimension of the game.
User Interface – For this new mode, the user interface has been totally redesigned, ensuring that players could easily understand the information on the screen while moving around in physical space. Readability and understanding were fundamental to the success of the game and, therefore, the development team invested in an intuitive and clean interface which also had to exist and work within the mixed reality context of the user’s own space.
Spatial Exploration – Another important challenge was adding a new spatial dimension to the game, allowing users to play in 360 degrees around their own real space. This is a big design change from the “on-rails” design of the base YUKI VR game, and many considerations had to be made here, including player safety. It was essential that players could play safely while avoiding collisions with objects and other people in the real world. Everything has been designed with that in mind, from enemy positioning, fair 360 exploration, challenge construction, and bullet design and movement.
Countdown begins for the launch of Summum Aeterna
