Tree VR: use VR to raise environmental awareness

In a previous project, our team became interested in increasing peoples’ awareness of environmental issues through games. Upon our research, we found that recently, immersive experience is widely used to raise the public’s awareness towards environmental issues. The Tree VR, introduced by New Reality Company and Rainforest Alliance, is a good example.

Tree is an award-winning VR experience where users take on the body and perspective of a rainforest tree and immerse themselves in the tragic fate of the tree. The entire game flow is only eight minutes. In the eight minutes, the player will grow from a seed to a majestic Kapok tree and witness a forest fire that destroys the forest. The Tree VR experience was open to visitors in Gardens by the Bay in 2019 with a ticket price of S$5.

Features:

The Tree VR provides a short but highly immersive experience. First of all, the graphics and art style used are very close to reality. The player can see details such as ants on the ground and wind blowing through the branches. In addition, what I liked a lot is the sound effect of the entire experience. There is no background music, and all the player can hear is the sound of the environment: the wind, the animals, the fire, etc. When people wave their controllers(branches), they can hear the slight noise made by the leaves.

Another interesting feature of Tree VR is that there are hardly any interactions throughout the entire game flow. In Tree VR, users will no longer see their hands. Instead, their hands are turned into the two branches of the tree. The player can only look around and wave their branches throughout the game. This design has both pros and cons.

Limiting users’ interactions actually makes the experience more immersive in this particular VR experience, because trees in real life are unable to interact with the environment on their own. When we see the forest fire as a tree, we cannot run away to seek help and have no choice but to wait for the fire to reach us. This is exactly what the game designers wanted to convey: “we must protect the forest for those who can’t speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish, and trees”.

However, I also agree that games with very few interactions are usually boring. Actually, I got bored for a while in Tree VR, as nothing is happening in my sight, and all I can do is wait for the next event to happen. If the designers decide to limit the interactions to make the experience more immersive, they should work harder not to make players bored.

Here I found a full playthrough video of the Tree VR, you may get a rough idea about what this VR experience is like after watching it 🙂

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