We’ve just trailed the advanced prototype of the Humber in a Box simulation – mainly to a bunch of GEES PhD students and whoever was passing by! This was great fun and getting feedback from users not related to the project gave us some insights into what to develop next.

What we learnt was that the camera height in the simulation makes you seem like a giant if you calibrate it sitting down – this could be an issue when used by members of the public as everyone is a different height. Zooming in is done by moving your head, just like real life, but this isn’t intuitive when holding a gaming controller and this made reading the place markers difficult – we will look into using waymarkers that are more instinctive rather than read.

A common piece of feedback was that people wanted to do more and interact with the environment in more ways – this is very positive for us as it shows that they are really engaged with the simulation and like the virtual environment, and we can build a whole lot more from this.

So thanks again the excellent group of @SEED_software student developers for their help. Hopefully, in a few weeks time we’ll be ready to launch with a proper, larger demonstration.

Humber in a Box is the test piece for SeriousGeoGames.