Ghostbusters VR

Credits: nDreams

This game is currently in development, but the game got announced by the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase in April 2022. I have been working on this title from the very beginning.

Strap on your proton pack and Meta Quest 2 and step into the world of Ghostbusters in immersive virtual reality. Start your Ghostbusters HQ in a new city, San Francisco, and solve a deep mystery across a new chapter in the Ghostbusters universe.

Track, blast, and trap ghosts in gripping encounters by wielding iconic equipment. Go it alone, or as a team with up to three friends in co-op, in an extensive and engrossing campaign. Continue the Ghostbusters’ legacy, protect the city from fiendish ghosts, and experience all the humor and frights from the beloved franchise.

Watch the official teaser trailer on YouTube:

Clicking this leads you to YouTube.

• Release Date: TBA
• More Infos: Project Website

Fracked

Credits: nDreams

I joined this game project very late in development and was just responsible for two major Unreal Engine 4 upgrades.

From the creators of the ground-breaking Phantom: Covert Ops, Fracked seamlessly collides relentless “run and cover” gunfights with free and fluid skiing and climbing, in trailblazing fashion. Uncompromised, audacious, and unashamedly stylish, Fracked grabs your VR headset by the motion controllers and delivers an ass kicking virtual reality game that has been made from the ground up for virtual reality platforms.

Stranded in a remote mountain facility, you play as a reluctant hero forced into a final stand between the planet and a legion of interdimensional enemies. Take aim and run head-first into explosive action as you shoot, ski, and climb your way across an extreme adventure. Alone, on the edge and really fracked off, humanity’s survival is in your hands.

Watch the official trailer on YouTube:

Clicking this leads you to YouTube.

• Release Date: August 2021
• More Infos: Project Website

The Great Pyramid

Credits: Ars Electronica / Robert Bauernhansl, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Great Pyramid is a project in the context of Immersify, that was created to show an impressive example for blurring the border between video and real-time applications. Visitors in Ars Electronicas Deep Space 8K experience an interactive flight through a point cloud scan of the Pyramid of Giza in form of 12K 360° videos, augmented with real-time content and the possibility to select several paths through the pyramid. The point cloud scans have been created by Scanlab, the 360° videos were produced by the BBC and the applications was developed by Clemens F. Scharfen with Unity3D by using a special video player, that was created in the context of Immersify by the Futurelab together with Spin Digital to be able to show the 12K x 12K, 360° stereo videos. This project can be taken as an example of the future of storytelling.

• Release Date: September 2019
• More Infos: Project Website

Rotax MAXDome

Credits: BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG

Together with Rotax, the Ars Electronica Futurelab created the next generation of e-karting experiences. As a visitor in the Rotax MAX Dome, you start by registering yourself to create your driver’s license and record a profile video in the green-room. Use the chance to pose in this video, because once you break the kart hall records, your avatar is going to smile and wave from the wall of fame displays. Now you get all safety instructions and the pitmaster guides you to your kart. The race can begin. You feel the raise of your blood pressure when you floor the gas pedal and drive the first curves. While giving your best to stay at the top of all competitors in the race, you come closer to the greatest part of the race track: The worldwide unique tunnel, 6 projectors and high precision laser rangers that track the position of your kart to make the tunnel your interactive playground. Suddenly you feel like Yoshi in Super Mario Kart: Your challenge is to get through the tunnel and gain as many points as possible.

Clemens F. Scharfen created the content for all multimedia displays in the MAX Dome. Roland Aigner developed the interactive tunnel, that was updated and enhanced by Clemens Scharfen. Marianne Eisl created the Green Room. Otto Naderer was responsible for the back-end system, that combined the displays, tunnel and green room with the ongoing race. Johannes Pöll designd all visual aspects. Christopher Lindinger worked closely together with the Rotax Team (Johannes Schönberg and Andreas Bangerl) so that this project was able to become the success, it is now.

• Release Date: June 2019
• More Infos: Project Website

Future Urban Mobility

Credits: Ars Electronica / Markus Scholl

Together with researchers from Technical University Munich (TUM) and the Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (CREATE) we developed a concept for the future public transportation system in Singapore. The vision is to develop an ultimate multi-layered, public transport system involving electric autonomous vehicles from 2030 onwards. Systems like this will have an impact to many people in Singapore, and therefor need to be communicated efficiently and clearly to the population. The Deep Space 8K VR-environment made it possible, to show a presentation to 100-200 people and one single person, to virtually go through the future city of Singapore.

Therefore, TUMCREATE designed a virtual city and future vehicles. Clemens Scharfen was responsible for rendering the content and synchronizing all systems in Unity3D. He created multi-platform application, that could be started in the Deep Space and on a backpack machine, connected with an Oculus Rift. A user with the VR headset could walk endlessly through the Deep Space (using redirected walking), experience walking through the future city of Singapore and interacting with the public transport system and autonomous vehicles. All other people in the Deep Space were able to see with active stereo glasses, what the VR user was seeing, on a 16x9 meters big wall and floor in 8K.

Watch this YouTube video to get a better impression:

Clicking this leads you to YouTube.

• Release Date: June 2017
• More Infos: Project Website

SAP Data Room

Credits: Ars Electronica, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In the heart of Berlin, Germany, we developed a room with the ability to inspire. In the center of this room was a data designed table. It was projected with 4K and made touchable by an adopted version of Ubi. On the walls around it, we mounted 22 displays, also made touchable by our in-house created laser scanning suite. Visitors are able to go inside the room, enter one or more keywords or an image (directly via the table or with the personal smartphone) and be inspired by the output of the walls. The information could be collected by sending it from the wall screens to the table and taken home via web interface. The aim of this room was not only to help groups in their brainstorming process, but also to find the right questions before even looking for answers – a process we call “Art Thinking”.

Peter Holzkorn was responsible for the back-end, including the inspiring artificial intelligence and the implementation of online resource APIs. Clemens Scharfen was responsible for the front-end, including all forms of interaction, the presentation of the content and its network synchronization.

• Release Date: December 2016
• More Infos: Project Website

A Universe Within

Credits: Ars Electronica / Magdalena Sick-Leitner, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A Universe Within - The Human Body was one of the projects that has been developed for the opening of the Ars Electronica Centers virtual reality room “Deep Space 8K” in August 2015. The application leads a visitor through the human body and gives information about our species in an entertaining and easy to follow way.

Watch this YouTube video of our talk at the Unity 2015 in Boston to get more details about the application and its implementation:

Clicking this leads you to YouTube.

• Release Date: August 2015
• More Infos: Project Website

Aquatic Space

Within the scope of the master’s final project David Pertiller and Clemens Scharfen created a serious mobile game for health and resilience with the purpose to strengthen the connection between children with behavioral problems and their parents. To achieve this, we worked together with master students from the faculty of psychology at the University of Vienna. Together we designed a game that, beside making fun, focused on training the player’s concentration and the possibility to get help from his or her parents. The psychology students were responsible for the psychological impacts and evaluation of the gathered data. Christian Hübel created all graphic assets, textures and animations. David Pertiller was responsible for a standalone parenting app, the interface for data collection in the game, processing of the data and the publishing for the iOS platform. Clemens Scharfen was responsible for the complete game development (game mechanics and logic, level design, editor tools, user interface, etc.) and usability tests. The game was published on iOS and Android for test families. The parenting app was developed with HTML; the game was created in Unity3D with C#.

In Aquatic Space, you have to navigate a “lost in space” turtle to its family. Therefore, you need to take a lot of challenging levels with increasing difficulty. You are swimming over a path on a rail-like navigation and are able to move to the left and right while the turtle is collecting items with its flippers. While moving forward, new rules are communicated to the player, that describe the color and form of the items and on which side of the turtle they need to be collected. The rule must be kept in memory and errors cost you a life-point. The gaming time was limited. Parents were able to help their children by increasing the game time or sending life points to them. In return, the children need to do something for or together with their parents (e.g. cleaning the dishes, doing the homework, etc.).

• Release Date: 2014

Blackguards

Credits: DAEDALIC Entertainment GmbH

During my internship, I was part of the Blackguards game development team. My main tasks were developing game mechanics, artificial intelligence for enemies and boss fights during combats and tools for our game designers in Unity3D, C#.

• Release Date: January 2014
• More Infos: Project Website

Pac-Man Nightmare

Pac-Man Nightmare is a Pac-Man clone, I created during my master studies in the course “Real-Time Graphics”. The task was to create a game that uses translucency, so I came up with the design idea of a Pac-Man game, that has transparent glass walls and where ghosts can walk through the glass walls. The game was created with Unity3D and C#. This was the first Unity application I created after my internship at Daedalic. Features were the general game logic (control Pac-Man through the labyrinth, collect power pellets, a smooth follow-camera, and a simple ghost AI), a mini-map, and a particle effect. I have to admit, that because of the “ghosts can walk through walls” feature, the game was so incredibly hard, that I only won it once.

• Release Date: 2012

Barrel Tower

Barrel Tower is a fun mini-game, where the player shall bring up the aviator in the tower as high as possible. Therefor, a player is able to shoot the aviator from one barrel to the next one. The game was implemented by the Wiecenec brothers and Clemens Scharfen within the course “Introduction to Computer Graphics” as part of the Bachelor Computer Science studies. We came up with the game-design idea (which is a mix of “Icy Tower” and “Donkey Kong Barrel Shoot mechanics”) and implemented the game in C++ and OpenGL (GLUT). We implemented the game mechanics (spawning barrels, shooting the aviator, restarting the game), physics collision, audio, and HUD (game-over screen, highscore) completely from scratch. We also deployed the game on friends PCs and if we are able to believe their feedback, they had a very good time playing Barrel Tower.

• Release Date: June 2011