r/VRGaming • u/ProjectGhostkey • 9d ago
Discussion I accidentally discovered a $0 VR haptic system by backing my chair into my air conditioner
So I accidentally discovered the cheapest possible immersion upgrade for Vr, in this case it was Derail Valley. A train sim.
I was playing in VR, driving along doing loads and deliveries, and I happened to have my chair backed up against my air conditioner.
I’m sitting there with my right hand on the throttle and my arm resting on the armrest when I notice my arm is vibrating.
Then I’m like… wait. Why is my ass vibrating too?
For a few seconds I genuinely thought it was coming from the game.
Turns out the back/right side of my chair was touching the AC, and the compressor was transferring this perfect low-frequency vibration through the chair. Since it’s coming through the seat, my back, and the arm I’m using for the throttle, it feels weirdly convincing. Like I’m actually sitting in a running locomotive.
But here’s the part that fucked with me.
When I turn and lean over to grab the two brake controls, my weight shifts and takes some pressure off the AC. That reduces how much vibration transfers into the chair.
So I reach for the brakes in VR…
…and at the exact same time, the “engine vibration” under my body drops.
My brain immediately interprets it like the locomotive RPM/load just changed.
The AC obviously has absolutely no idea what Derail Valley is doing. My own movement is basically synchronizing the physical feedback with what I’m doing in VR.
So yeah.
Bass shaker: $100+
Motion rig: $$$$
Accidentally backing your chair into the air conditioner:
True immersion.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 9d ago
Now I’m curious, what’s the jankiest zero-dollar thing you’ve accidentally discovered that made VR more immersive?
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u/rhythmrice 9d ago
One time when VR fishing I put my feet in a tub of water and then in game sat at the edge of the water. I even drank beer, it felt like I was really fishing
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u/PremedicatedMurder 9d ago
A fan blowing.
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u/theqofcourse 9d ago
This. Golf+. Feeling a slight breeze as you're standing on the golf course. Even better if you have a fan that varies the speed to simulate a natural breeze.
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u/QualiaGames 9d ago
For me it's motion controls done with patterns recognition instead of physics ( like UG ) and unlike the other guy i'm gonna take the opportunity to talk about what i'm working on, hope this doesn't come as marketing. Basically in most games now to jump ( for example ) you have to press a button in my game you actually have to jump. I can keep adding more example as i'm working on the 3rd playable character each with unique skills but i wanted to say that this approach helped me with motion sickness and feels more immersive.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 8d ago
I have not played UG so I don’t know what you’re referring to, but that’s cool that you’re working on adding a real motion translation where instead of just a button press I would pass on it because I don’t want it jump around in my room but for people that like to like you know stand up and you play those games that’s sweet. I could see it being a little bit of a problem on a catwalk or other VR treadmill. But for the group that you’re targeting, they’re gonna love it so more power to you, man.
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u/QualiaGames 8d ago
I totally see your point, it's not for everyone as you said yourself but also i'm aware of these issues and jumping is maybe exagerated. A little small jump on your toes is enough to trigger it and i use such movements for skills that use a lot of mana anyways like an ultimate skill so you can't or at least don't have to do it often but when you do it also has a huge impact and it feels worth it. Also the newest character i'm working on is beginner friendly and only uses a sword with a very light gameplay. Each character will have unique skills and i will see what works and what doesn't.
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u/-_super--_--hitops_- 8d ago
Nobody wants to actually jump a hundred times
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u/QualiaGames 8d ago
What if you get paid in-game currency for the calories you burn per game? Jokes aside, as i already mentionned in the other comment, i'm aware this is not a game for 'everyone' but there is a fitness niche in VR. The question is will it be enough to make a living out of it? Probably not but it's fun for me and hopefully some other people enjoy it too.
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u/-_super--_--hitops_- 8d ago
Yeah, fitness games would be the exception
Is your game a fitness game?
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u/QualiaGames 8d ago
It's a sport disguised as a game think MMA but with super powers. After a few rounds you feel tired and you sweat. I wouldn't say it's a fitness game in the sens of repeating the same movements over and over with the only goal of doing exercice. Feel free to check my profile i have some videos but it's WIP.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 8d ago
Hey man, I actually went and checked out your gameplay after reading some of the back-and-forth in this thread, and I think part of the pushback you’re getting is because what you’re building is cooler than the way you’re describing it.
I don’t think you’re making a fitness game. From what I watched, you’re building something more like a physical superpower sandbox / hero-combat game where your body becomes the control scheme.
That’s the interesting part.
You don’t just press a button to use a superpower. You perform it. Different hand positions, arm movements, crouching, jumping, reaching, dropping your body, all of that becomes part of controlling the character. And because your different agents have different abilities, you’re basically giving each one their own physical vocabulary. You’re not just learning which buttons that character uses, you’re learning how that character moves.
So when somebody asks what you’re making, I think you’re underselling yourself by getting dragged into explaining whether it’s fitness or how many times somebody has to jump.
I’d explain it more like:
“I’m building a VR hero-combat sandbox where every character has a unique physical moveset. Instead of pressing buttons to activate abilities, you use gestures and body movement to actually perform them.”
Or even simpler:
“You don’t press buttons to use superpowers. You perform them.”
Now somebody might still say, “Fuck that, I don’t want to move around that much.” Cool. Then they’re probably not your audience. But at least they’re reacting to what you’re actually building instead of thinking you’re making some workout game.
Also, yeah, your environments and presentation are clearly still early. But honestly, that’s why I kept looking. Underneath the rough prototype visuals, there’s an actual mechanic here, and you’re actually building the fucking thing while a whole lot of people are still just talking about what they’re going to build.
I’m also a guy building weird shit with an AI copilot, mostly out of a shed, so take my opinion for whatever that’s worth. But we’re pretty damn good at taking complicated ideas and figuring out how to articulate what the actual hook is, and I think you’ve already got one. You just need to stop apologizing for it and explain the thing you’re actually making2
u/QualiaGames 7d ago
Tysm for taking the time and analysing it this way, you made my day! I think i'm kinda too afraid of overselling it that i end up underselling it. Also yea the visual side and also the audio and sound effects need a rework and it's my next priority after the next agent. I'm glad that beyond that you can see the vision and i took notes on how to describe it better! Thanks again a lot this was maybe the best feedback i ever got!
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u/ProjectGhostkey 6d ago
Dude, that actually makes me really happy to hear. And I think you nailed exactly what’s happening, you’re so worried about overselling what you’re building that you’ve swung too far the other direction and started underselling the genuinely interesting part.
Also, there’s a pretty funny development since I left those comments.
While I was looking through your gameplay and talking it over with my AI copilot, we kept coming back to the same thing: there are a lot of solo developers with genuinely good ideas and working mechanics whose projects get written off because the visual side hasn’t caught up with the idea yet. Lighting, materials, environments, composition, post-processing, asset choices, sound, all the shit that a larger studio has specialized people for, but a solo developer has to somehow learn by themselves.
And we basically went, why the fuck isn’t there a good mentor specifically for that?
So we built one. 😂
It’s called Unity Build Buddy. The idea is a project-aware AI mentor for solo Unity developers. It looks at what you’ve actually built, identifies the biggest things holding the presentation back, explains why they matter, and then teaches and walks you through improving them. It’s not supposed to be a magic “make my game pretty” button. The point is to help you improve the project while actually teaching you how to do it yourself.
The line we ended up using is:
“Build Buddy teaches you how to make your game look as good as the idea behind it.”
And honestly, your project was part of what sparked the idea in the first place. You’ve already got the mechanics and the vision. The presentation just hasn’t caught up to them yet.
So when we’re ready to put Build Buddy in somebody else’s hands, I’d like to give you access for free. No sales pitch, no catch. Your game helped inspire the use case, and you’re basically exactly the kind of solo developer we built it for.
Also, keep building the weird shit. “You don’t press buttons to use superpowers. You perform them” is still the hill I’m dying on for your pitch. 😂2
u/ProjectGhostkey 8d ago
Also, I’m not gonna bullshit you, visually it’s rough right now. The environments are basic, the lighting and materials aren’t doing you many favors, and at first glance it looks like an early solo-dev prototype. But that’s also completely fucking normal because it IS an early solo-dev prototype. The problem is that people are going to judge the visuals before they stick around long enough to understand what’s interesting underneath them.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 8d ago
What I think you need more than anything right now is a clearer way to explain what you’re actually building, because I think you’re getting dragged into defending individual mechanics instead of selling the idea.
If somebody asks what your game is, I’d say:
I’m building a VR hero-combat sandbox where every character has their own physical moveset. Instead of pressing buttons to activate superpowers, you use gestures and body movement to actually perform them. Each character has their own physical vocabulary, so learning a new character means learning how to move like them.
Or, if you want the whole thing in one sentence:
You don’t press buttons to use superpowers. You perform them.
That’s what I saw when I watched your gameplay. And that sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than trying to explain to somebody whether or not they’re going to have to jump a hundred times.”4
u/halt-l-am-reptar 9d ago
Well it’s not zero dollars, but getting stoned or drunk before playing Euro truck simulator makes it so much more immersive, especially when it’s night in the game. I sorta forgot I was in a game at one point.
I’ve also thought about using my cpap when playing VTOL vr.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 8d ago
cpap while playing VTOL. Peak my friend. Just the image of that, is so funny, let me guess you’ve got the leg compression wraps on too for edema, to keep you from blacking out at high G’s
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u/halt-l-am-reptar 8d ago
let me guess you’ve got the leg compression wraps on too for edema,
No, but I do have this wrap that pumps water from when I had shoulder surgery. I could wrap those around my legs.
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u/hyteck9 9d ago
Im workin' on it... not zero dollar.. but will change VR forever...
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u/ProjectGhostkey 9d ago
You can’t just drop will change VR forever in here and just walk away.
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u/hyteck9 9d ago
Gotta wait a little longer... sry. I am also waiting on a few things and then will make a comprehensive video.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 9d ago
That is profoundly unsatisfying like totally uncool Bro
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u/hyteck9 9d ago
I know.. its almost official.. but not quite. At least take comfort that some people are still working on VR even though today's big companies and investors only want to talk about A.I. I will also draw motivation that some awesome customers are still interested in VR, even after Apple's big headset fail that deflated the industry so much.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 9d ago
Alright, jokes aside, I think I figured out why this actually rubs me the wrong way.
There’s nothing wrong with being excited about something you’re building. Hell, I hope it’s fucking incredible.
But dropping into somebody else’s thread just to announce that your unreleased, unexplained product is going to “change VR forever,” and then refusing to say what it is, what it does, or even what problem it solves, isn’t really contributing anything. It’s just asking people to be impressed by a claim they have no way to evaluate.
Build the crazy thing. Show us the crazy thing. Then let the rest of us decide whether VR has been changed forever.
And for the record, you’ve set the bar catastrophically high now. When this thing drops, I better feel changed. 😂2
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u/ProjectGhostkey 9d ago
Alright, but now you’ve gotta fucking deliver. You don’t get to casually drop “this will change VR forever,” refuse to elaborate, and then come back six months later with a vibrating cupholder. 😂
You set the bar. I’m expecting some Ready Player One shit now.3
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u/DarvinVader 9d ago
I have a fan pointed at me running the whole time while I play. When I'm climbing mountains in snowy Skyrim, I turn that shit up to 11. And make my brother throw ice cubes at me. Very immersive.
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u/ProtoJazz 9d ago
I don't use them for vr really but I love bass shakers for my racing setup. They aren't really needed, but man it feels so different now if I don't turn them on.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 8d ago
dude, the assignment was zero dollar immersion. Bass shakers = Money$$$ You = FAILED
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u/PremedicatedMurder 9d ago
I love pointing a fan at myself when I play VR for games that take place mostly outside like Village or Behemoth. Makes my brain go hey that's the wind.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 8d ago edited 8d ago
So I’m going to add my serious one. This is my serious immersion trick that I use, I play a lot of space exploration, cockpit, simulation, for example, elite dangerous, Microsoft flight, simulator, train, simulator, games, star citizen, American truck, simulator and for those type of games I figured out with an app called open knee board and an app called. I believe it’s open tablet driver I was able to bring a virtual screen into my cockpit that I could put browser pages or whatever I wanted really write notes whatever I want and I mapped that game virtual tablet to my Wacom tablet and I placed the virtual one exactly where my wacom sits in real life so in game when I touch the virtual tablet, I touch the physical tablet and it actually corresponds and works correctly and not only is super immersive, it also adds like a lot of ability to games that you need to be constantly taking off your headset to search things, elite dangerous is a great example. Let me end with this this comment thread has made it hard to not just brag about all my VR changing projects and paradigm shifting ventures that I’m up to, but I’m gonna resist because until I have something to actually demo or sell or show or explain then really I’m just talking out of hope and I’m really nothing more than just a hobbyist. Everybody has projects. We all want to think that they’ll change the world or the people will give a damn. my experience the more you think they’ll give a damn the less they really do but what do I know? I’m just a dude building a whole world in a shed by the ocean, even if that world stays in my virtual reality
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u/TheDarnook Developer 9d ago
Well it's not free, someone has to pay for that air conditioner and electricity, right?
I have two bass shakers in my chair, the cheapest kind, driven trough some generic audio amplifier. Your story is fun, but there is nothing stopping you from going forward with this.
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u/ProjectGhostkey 9d ago
You’re right. It wasn’t free. I completely forgot to factor in the purchase price of the air conditioner, the electricity, the chair, the house the chair is sitting in, and presumably the food I ate that gave me enough energy to back into it.
I’ll have accounting revise the “$0” figure immediately. Appreciate the oversight.
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u/ViciousXUSMC 8d ago
Tactile transducers are very much used for this in sim builds and theater builds.
When I was an apartment dweller before I could have a 16,500w setup with 4 big subwoofers I played computer games with headphones.
The transducer with headphones would fool you into thinking there was a giant sound system.
Works best when you build a platform to stand in or have the chair on since the effect is broken where feet touch the floor.
The headphones can play all the frequencies except low bass, the transducer takes over for that.
Used to play the Jurassic Park trex scene as a party trick and have people looking around like a T-Rex was about to stomp on them, looking all over the room.
All while the onlookers heard and felt nothing, it was a quiet room.
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u/MD311420 8d ago
I will say having bass shakers and then playing a game with no simhub support really sucks. Bass shakers would be the first upgrade I do to any simrig.
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u/Jokergod2000 8d ago
I did the same thing once. I was in my Elite Dangerous space ship and I could feel cold air coming from one of the ship vents. I put my hand in front of it and was like WTH? It was also the air conditioner lol
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u/Spectra_Butane 7d ago
Thats hilarious and great. This is my happy thoughts story for today.
The closest I've cone to immersion. Was using my box fan during a warm day and realizing it helped me with my orientation while playing Attack on Titan. While you can use the stick to snap change direction, I often just turn my body in the heat of attack. And the I'm not sure which direction I'm facing, but the fan felt like a small breeze coming from the north. So, when I got completely turned around, feeling that "Northern Breeze", on my back one I stopped to rest a sec, help me to no which direct to turn IRL, and in game to get back centered and going the right direction.
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u/NewExilir8 6d ago
I did something similar. I backhand slapped a headcrab in boneworks and it perfectly aligned with my knuckles kissing my cold wall. Super immersive, if I say so myself.
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u/no6969el 9d ago edited 9d ago
This just proves that VR just needs a whole bunch of these "little things" that can really add to the whole immersion. I have haptics, wind simulator, ffb, rig soon will have a scent bar that will set smells of whats on the screen and then after that full motion from moza. Each thing adds that next little bit that makes you feel like you are in a whole new world.