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Dactyl Nightmare was the "pilot" game for most of the CS1000 virtual reality pods manufactured by W Industries (known later as Virtuality) back in late 1991. As this "in-game" image details (apparently they took this screenshot using an NTSC encoder on the pod's PAL output, thus gaining a black and white image - the original in-game view was in color), the game was a first-person "shooter" whereby you and three other people competed in an "arena" to shoot and "kill" (de-rez?) each other, all the while avoiding the pteradactyl which circled above you, and would grab you (unless you shot it first - tricky, but possible), lift you into the "sky" and drop you to your death on the arena floor below.

The pods were networked together, and ran on extremely customized Amiga 3000 platforms (using custom dual video boards to the Visette HMDs, and a custom 3D spatial position tracking system, IIRC, from Polhemus, to track the pistol-grip controller and head movements, as well as a custom CD-ROM drive system for the software and audio). Each HMD had a microphone, so players could talk with/to each other. The HMDs were large, but well balanced, though the system had lag that could be noticed if you moved your head too rapidly (although the HMD was so heavy that if you did that too much you might wrench your neck from the inertia).

The game was fairly simple in design and play, in a manner like "virtual paintball", where you ran around (by pointing your gun in one direction and pressing a trigger to move forward in that direction - a separate trigger fired your gun), and shot your "pellets" (which had a set velocity, and "gravity" pulled them in an arc in the arena, making for some interesting "shots") at each other as you ran up and down stairs through various levels of the arena, and also used "transporter pads" which were small areas you could step onto and they would transport you in an arc to other levels in the arena (but don't fall off! just like q-bert, you'll die).

What I liked most about the game, which isn't something you can do in a standard FPS (although maybe newer ones today allow for something like it), is that you could "back up" against one of the "pillars" in the game, and use it as "cover", and extend your arm and shoulder around the corner (thus exposing just your arm and a bit of your head, like IRL) to shoot at someone. You could easily crouch and fire, run and hide (strafing was not something you could do, though), duck and fire.

No, the graphics weren't hi-res, the speed wasn't fantastic, the game wasn't complex - but I have yet to play any game that was as engrossing and caused me to feel like I was "really there" - where I could look down and see my legs, look at my hand and see my gun - then run, duck, crouch, rise up and fire, blowing my opponent away, while I heard them in the headphones saying "what happened?" (unfortunately for most people they didn't have a clue as to how the whole thing worked - many "players" seemed to stand around looking, and not realizing that they were supposed to run around and shoot at things - this made for bad gameplay sometimes, it was always a much better experience playing with people who knew how to play).

You can't find these pods much anymore - there are a few on the fairground amusement rounds, that is about it. Others have moved on to the newer pods, which are still being made and sold by Arcadian Virtual Reality and their partners. Still, despite the real immersive interactivity these machines offer, there doesn't seem to be great interest, and to most they are still a "novelty"...

We probably won't ever see such a system in the home any time soon, mainly because of several reasons, which include liability concerns (from falling hazards to

Dactyl Nightmare was the "pilot" game for most of the CS1000 virtual reality pods manufactured by W Industries (known later as Virtuality) back in late 1991. As this "in-game" image details (apparently they took this screenshot using an NTSC encoder on the pod's PAL output, thus gaining a black and white image - the original in-game view was in color), the game was a first-person "shooter" whereby you and three other people competed in an "arena" to shoot and "kill" (de-rez?) each other, all the while avoiding the pteradactyl which circled above you, and would grab you (unless you shot it first - tricky, but possible), lift you into the "sky" and drop you to your death on the arena floor below.

The pods were networked together, and ran on extremely customized Amiga 3000 platforms (using custom dual video boards to the Visette HMDs, and a custom 3D spatial position tracking system, IIRC, from Polhemus, to track the pistol-grip controller and head movements, as well as a custom CD-ROM drive system for the software and audio). Each HMD had a microphone, so players could talk with/to each other. The HMDs were large, but well balanced, though the system had lag that could be noticed if you moved your head too rapidly (although the HMD was so heavy that if you did that too much you might wrench your neck from the inertia).

The game was fairly simple in design and play, in a manner like "virtual paintball", where you ran around (by pointing your gun in one direction and pressing a trigger to move forward in that direction - a separate trigger fired your gun), and shot your "pellets" (which had a set velocity, and "gravity" pulled them in an arc in the arena, making for some interesting "shots") at each other as you ran up and down stairs through various levels of the arena, and also used "transporter pads" which were small areas you could step onto and they would transport you in an arc to other levels in the arena (but don't fall off! just like q-bert, you'll die).

What I liked most about the game, which isn't something you can do in a standard FPS (although maybe newer ones today allow for something like it), is that you could "back up" against one of the "pillars" in the game, and use it as "cover", and extend your arm and shoulder around the corner (thus exposing just your arm and a bit of your head, like IRL) to shoot at someone. You could easily crouch and fire, run and hide (strafing was not something you could do, though), duck and fire.

No, the graphics weren't hi-res, the speed wasn't fantastic, the game wasn't complex - but I have yet to play any game that was as engrossing and caused me to feel like I was "really there" - where I could look down and see my legs, look at my hand and see my gun - then run, duck, crouch, rise up and fire, blowing my opponent away, while I heard them in the headphones saying "what happened?" (unfortunately for most people they didn't have a clue as to how the whole thing worked - many "players" seemed to stand around looking, and not realizing that they were supposed to run around and shoot at things - this made for bad gameplay sometimes, it was always a much better experience playing with people who knew how to play).

You can't find these pods much anymore - there are a few on the fairground amusement rounds, that is about it. Others have moved on to the newer pods, which are still being made and sold by Arcadian Virtual Reality and their partners. Still, despite the real immersive interactivity these machines offer, there doesn't seem to be great interest, and to most they are still a "novelty"...

We probably won't ever see such a system in the home any time soon, mainly because of several reasons, which include liability concerns (from falling hazards to

Eh, all the overpriced, overhyped hardware that went under the moniker of "virtual reality" had little or nothing to do with what really generates an immersive experience.

Hell, a text-based MUD is more involving than $60,000 hardware (oh, sorry, it's marked down to $10,000 now) used to shoot six-polygon pterodactyls. Very little is needed to lose oneself in the game. People are a lot better at suspending disbelief than one would imagine.

--grendel drago

I've never played one, but as far as the specs, this page has a little info, though it's not very thorough.

Crap?!? Didn't you see the exciting action shot?

http://www.vr-atlantis.com/default.htm

This place already has units in Korea, and a couple other amusement parks. I spoke with the Pres at one time about a job. Very nice set up they have and they plan to ip them world wide.

Strap into a VR-Quake machine for 5 bucks and play someone half way around the world in life size VR.