Universus is the New, Positive Version of Social VR, where players come for New Friends, Meaningful Connections and Uplifting Experiences.
So today Game Geeks News are proud to bring you yet another amazing project going LIVE TODAY on kickstarter. Sever Sfrengeu, just one of the team members at Universus, has a background in virtual reality for mental health and music production was so excited about this new virtual reality social game, he wanted to share it with us at Game Geeks News.
There’s a place for everyone, whether you are outgoing and sociable or more introverted.
You’ll be able to enjoy fun Mini-Games, Collect Rewards, and most importantly, have Positive and Encouraging Dialogues with other members of the community. You can use the Soul Language to express yourself without using words. The Soul Language will allow you to express your true feelings towards others. Visiting our Marketplace you will be able to buy items created by our community or sell your own.
Mission:
Universus is brought to you by a team of enthusiasts; like many of you, we got tired of the toxic interactions in other Social VR games and looked for something meaningful, where kind, friendly behavior would be a rule and not an exception.
The story develops based on the common belief that each person has a soul and a purpose in the world. In Universus, your soul purpose is discovered based on your personality. You have to connect with your true self in order to experience the full extent of the in-game possibilities. Everyone starts on a level playing field, as a soul avatar. As you get initiated throughout the game, it will become more and more obvious where you belong.
After you complete different actions in the soul hub, you will evolve into an initiated soul. From this point on, you can belong to one of the following 4 worlds: SYNTHO,
MOSS, RUBY and ZEPPELIN.
Each of the 4 worlds is tailored towards a specific personality type.
Your journey will start at the Soul Hub, a forgotten world, which was abandoned by its inhabitants a long time ago. Now, it’s a realm of souls, carefree and cheerful beings. Explore this floating archipelago, meet other souls, try your hand at soul language, play games, and collect hidden artefacts to unlock the portals to new worlds.
Worlds:
Syntho is a logic-driven world and has rectangular contours; it will require analytical skills and strategic thinking.
The world: A tech-centred positive cyberpunk. It’s a city left after an urban catastrophe: buildings dilapidating, wires hanging everywhere, trash scattered in the streets. Use your skills to solve puzzles, clear the clutter and help return the city to its prime state.
Avatars: robots, cyborgs, cubic humanoids.
Ruby is a vibrant town with magic waiting for you around every corner; it’s the best destination for creative types.
The world: This is the world where you get to party and live in the moment. Music, dance and fun games are the main attractions in Ruby. There is a ubiquitous magical energy in this world that everyone can take from certain sources, and it gives you inspiration and power to create.
Avatars: human-like flames.
In Moss, nature meets the city in harmony, and its inhabitants are known for their empathy and caring.
The world: A solar-punk futuristic, green world with urban spaces adapted to nature – a tech-nature utopia. In the beginning, it’s an arid world at first without much greenery, and you start at a small oasis. You can travel only through the spaces with some plants, and you need to plant and curate more trees and flowers to move around. The final goal is to make the entire world green.
Avatars: plant-like creatures, cheerful flowers, walking cacti.
Zeppelin is an unpredictable steampunk scene that promises adventure.
The world: Light and dynamic, this world is always in flux. Adventure waits for you around every corner, as you go on quests or hijack zeppelins, or design adventures for others as you build the city yourself with ready-made kits. You’d want to buy some things from traders of other worlds to succeed in quests or make your city design unique.
Avatars: anthropomorphic animals and birds.
Try different avatars in the four worlds, and travel between them to discover which ones you like best. If there’s a place where you’d like to settle, you can stay in that world and become part of the local community, but of your adventurous soul longs for more, you can follow a quest that will take you to the edge of this world and beyond it.
Anti – Bullying Commitment:
Our main motivation behind the Universus project is our anti-bullying commitment. Before the artistic vision was imagined, before the story on Universus was created, we started out with one single goal in mind: how can we build a social VR game that doesn’t allow bullies in their community? And this is not an easy job, in fact, most games struggle with the toxic component of their user base.
We don’t claim to have all the answers, and want to present all the actions we are taking towards this: building certain features to limit the possibility of harassment, strict moderation of the platform and powerful incentives towards keeping the community clean.
We have no tolerance towards cyberbullying or any other form of harassment. We know very well how dangerous these behaviours are.
The purpose of the Universus community is to provide a sense of belonging, with no tolerance towards toxic behavior. Members of Universus will be able to find emotional support, express themselves freely, have honest conversations and build meaningful relationships with others.
The community has a strong impact in everything we do, so we want to make sure to involve the members of it in our major decisions.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is developed based on the story of the Soul that goes through a journey of initiation. The most effective way to progress is by doing helpful deeds for others. All the experiences in Universus are crafted towards uplifting sensations and feelings of well being.
Mechanics :
1. Movement:
As a soul avatar, you are able to freely fly around, speed up and float.
As you progress through game, the movement mechanics change for each world. *Please review the specifics of each world in the story section.
2. Communication:
The communication mechanics have 3 different steps. They were designed to smoothly walk users through the social experience.
At first, you are only able to talk with other users through the soul language. If you decide that the user might be a potential connection, you can add them as a friend. This is step 2. Once you have someone as a friend, you can freely talk to them using real-time voice chat.
Step number 3 only happens if you decide to stop communication with another user. You can block or mute them.
Features :
Personal space – by default you get a personal bubble of 3 feet. When a user doesn’t have you as a friend, they won’t be able to get closer than that.
The Soul Language is a communication feature in development. The purpose of the soul language is to allow users to express themselves without using words or as a complement for spoken languages. The soul language is a universal tool, where people from all backgrounds, that speak different languages, can understand each other.
As the soul language gets developed, at some point it will be customizable. As a user you will be able to invent your own expressions and add them to your soul vocabulary.
As the name implies, the soul language is tailored towards honest and deep communication. It is also an anti-bullying mechanism, which prevents other users from verbally harassing you. If you determine that a user is friendly, after communicating through the soul language, you can decide to move the connection forward by requesting a friendship invite.
More Social Features:
• to start a voice chat, add someone as a friend
• mute and block buttons
• safe space, where you can spend some time on your own.
Age groups: in Universus , the members of the community are matched according to their age group. This is an experimental feature that we are implementing to test its efficiency. A common complaint in social VR, or in multiplayer games in general, are conflicts between different age groups. If our assumption is correct, we will be able to avoid unnecessary toxic behaviour by having this feature.
Soul Mates:
The soul mates feature is the dating capability in Universus. You can find your “soul mate” and develop a real relationship in the game. Other users will know that a person has a soul mate, it will be signalled next to your name.
Weekly Events:
We are organizing a weekly event to shape the culture of the community. Each week, we address a specific topic of discussion.
We take an iterative approach to development, so the weekly events also consist in feedback sessions and feature suggestions from the community.
Marketplace:
Wherever you are, you can craft your own items and trade them in the marketplace between the worlds. The items can also be gifted to other users.
From skins, to masks and gloves to items that provide superpowers, the marketplace will include premium items built by our team and community developed items.
Mini-Games:
Each world has its specific mini-games tailored according to the personality of the inhabitants of each world.
In the Soul Hub:
This is the hot-potato mini-game. It’s based on fast reactions, focus development, and building trust with your co-player. Simple, but engaging, the hot potato mini-game is meant to develop your fast-reaction skills, reliance on the community members and an overall fun experience.
Hoop Race: this mini-game has the purpose of engaging users in a race competition around the soul hub. You will develop flying skills, get random boosts as you fly through each ring, and place obstacles in front of other players.
Meet the Team:
CEO – Sever
Background: Virtual Reality for Mental Health
Every time I tried social VR I ended up leaving the game right away. I found toxic behaviours and the users weren’t too friendly. I knew that cyberbullying has deep mental health repercussions. I realized that there is a huge need for a VR game that solves the toxicity problem. And thats why I wanted to work on Universus.
CTO – Ilan
Background: VR, AR and iOS/Android Development, Motion Design
I am a motion designer & developer, user of Unity3D, After Effects and Cinema 4D software, and I’ve been in the industry for over 10 years. Universus gives me a chance to work on the intersection of VR, network and the game’s social aspect and to find the best solutions for our game.
Game Designer – Alya
Background: Narrative Design, Sci-fi Short Stories, Video Games Production
My strongest suit is imagination and storytelling. Being part of Universus team, the biggest reward for me is to see the worlds we imagined come to life through our collaboration, and to see the players explore them and form a positive and supportive community.
3D Artist – Liya
Background: A Game Developer Artist with Wide Range Experience in 3D Modeling, Character Creating, Animation and 2D Art, Concept.
I am a 3d/2d artist at Universus. I am very interested in working on a VR project. Being part of Universus team, I enjoy working as a team and creating worlds, games, and puzzles for people to play together, to have fun.
Community Engagement – Dimitris
Background: Marketing Campaigns, Ad Creation
I specialize in networking, creativity, organisation and planning. As part of Universus, I’m looking forward to achieving all of our goals, making our mark in the gaming & tech industry and creating the experience and community we all have envisioned.
Network Engineer – Peter
Background: Unity Expert, I have Developed Multiple Multiplayer Games Using Unity, PlayFab and Photon.
I always anticipate issues and edge cases that might occur by players and work them out beforehand. Being a part of Universus in the journey of creating awesome toxic free social VR motivates me to push it even further to make our players happy and connected together without any issues.
Universus goes LIVE Today on Kickstarter so be sure to drop by and show your support by pledging. For more information check out their kickstarter here.
