Research

What is VR?
Virtual Reality (VR) is the use of computer technology to create a digitally simulated 3D environment. It can be similar to or completely different from the real world. In order to create a 3D environment, the video, image, or game needs to be 360 degrees.

Why VR for the design for screen?
I think VR would work best for the brief as the aim is to immerse the viewer into the game. This will being them closer to the desire of escaping reality, which is what the experience I am trying to create questions.

VR examples
Glass Canvas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKm-SOOMC4c
This video is a Virtual Realiy 360° waterslide experience through several locations including a city, desert, lake, jungle and many others. The video being 360 degrees allows the viewer to look around in any direction using a VR headset or just by using the mouse. This creates a more immersive experience for the viewer, making them feel as thought they are in these places. The viewer is taken through these places on a waterslide, creating a path for the simulation to go.

Lawrence Lek
https://vimeo.com/lek
Lawrence Lek creates simulation of places as art to visualise current issues and future. As the place my design for screen is a simulation, this research has given insight into how the simulation is presented and what it could represent.It can bring issue to life through creating an environment. Lawrence Lek uses sound to further communicate the purpose of the video and simulation, adding appropriate music and simulated voice to explain or further the environment. In one of the videos looked at, it is a simulation created to be the year 2065, where algorithms have taken over work, and people play games all day to battle against AIs. This deals with the future of the digital age and the growing research into AI. It questions the viewer on what the future looks like, and what will be our lives. Another video looked at is called Shiva's Dreaming: Crystal Palace, which references to the third Hindu god Shiva, whose role it is to destroy the universe in order to re-create it, the work sets in motion a series of infinite cycles. This is emulated in the simulation, where the viewer explores a digital replica of The Crystal Palace at Sydenham on the night of 30 November 1936, just as the building is slowly being consumed by fire. As players explore the smoke-filled scene, their movements trigger explosions that transform the crystalline architecture into cascades of glass shards, falling apart in slow motion - only to regenerate itself afterwards. The purpose of this simulation is to position the viewer at a precarious threshold between real and simulated physical encounters with architecture and its materials. This has inspired my brief to look into a purpose that the simulation can convey, such as current topics, through the design of the simulation.

360 Vacation VR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9njwl_VzZA 
360 Vacation VR is a youtube channel that creates VR that you can use in most VR headsets, or just by using your mouse on your PC. This is a VR video of being on a rollercoaster, moving through a realistic looking place on earth. This created the experience of being on a rollercoaster visual, allowing the viewer to look around at the views and experience motion as they are taken through the ride. As rollercoaster tycoon is based on rides which players can experience in the game, this could be a way of creating an experience on screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ8MFNJTfLQ 
Another example of VR but made from a video game, Minecraft. Could the simulated game become a VR world?

Videos that use VR

The Agar Agar music video for Fangs Out has been researched for the brief because the video explores the space between a virtual world and reality. The woman who ears VR glasses walks around the real world while being in a simulation as a wolf. This has repercussions in the real world, reading to scenarios in the VR world. The woman in this simulation experiences both realities, causing distressing effects. This could be something to be explored in the brief as the place which the design for screen will be placed on is a theme park in rollercoaster tycoon, which is a simulation. It has inspired the idea of creating an environment in which the viewer experiences both the real world and the simulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoN0HRdF0Ws

Why people enjoy playing simulation games as a way of escaping reality

Steve McKeown, a psychoanalyst, on The Sims:

"The Sims can allow a person to escape social normality, its pressures and chronic stresses that are so prevalent in the real world, it allows the gamer to create a perfect reality in which they play the main character and have full control over the outcome."

Game designer Jane McGonigal:

There are two kinds of escapism: self-suppression and self-expansion. Self-suppression is a way of running away from unhappy thoughts and emotions, and self-expansion is a way of seeking new skills, relationships and positive thoughts. 

"Everything sucks, so I'm going to go play games, versus, life is better when I have time to play games."

When using games as a way of ignoring real life issues and mental health, it can lead to suffering with isolation, anxiety and depression.

She concluded that the key to playing games is to do it with a positive goal like expanding your creativity, e.g. when playing Rollercoaster Tycoon or The Sims, it allows gamers to create their own world.

https://www.indy100.com/article/the-sims-players-healthier-happier-gaming-escapism-play-god-addiction-8193971