Why Early Access?

“Pacebreaker is being developed by the VR Health Institute and our sister org, The Healthy Empire, to be the most advanced demonstration of next generation exercise technology to ever exist... eventually.

We believe that VR is more than just fun exercise. It's the first generation of exercise equipment where bio-feedback and artificial intelligence can change every aspect of your experience for the optimal, painless exercise.

Since our team is made up of a mix of developers, graduate students, and researchers, many of the features we hope to include in Pacebreaker are being created as we go. Our primary focus is on using artificial intelligence and bio-feedback (incorporating a player's heart rate into gameplay) to optimize your success in exercise. Imagine a game that knows you quit your exercise early whenever you are too tired and losing points... and so it adjusts difficulty to keep you engaged and succeeding just enough to hold you to your goals.

It's our goal to demonstrate that Motivational A.I., Responsive Exercise, and a true application of behavioral psychology can make VR and AR the next generation of exercise.

But that will take time, and we don't know we can actually do it.

- First, we have to build a game that has very granular difficulty and intensity controls. The A.I. needs to be able to adjust lots of different factors in the game that might impact your exercise and fun. It has to be engaging, and compelling enough that we can build on that framework all the logic and tools that will later be used by the AI.

- Second, we want to build tools to incorporate heart rate into gameplay. We already have the first prototypes of this in our current app, the VR Health Exercise App. But we need to test it and make it generally public.

- Third, we need to actually build the decision making and tools needed for the AI to customize the experience for an individual player. Are you more likely to quit when you're the most tired? When you're losing? When you have something to prove? Or are you the type of player that never quits during the heart of the challenge, and tend to end your exercise after sets, after accomplishment?

Figuring out the best tools to motivate exercisers will take time.

- And all of that has to happen while also making a game that's compelling, socially rewarding, innovative, and fun to play.

We're going to start at the top. Because we don't know how long that will take, we're choosing Early Access so that players can give us feedback as we build.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“An extended period of time, several months at the least.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“- Support for larger multiplayer groups
- Inclusion of extremely granular AI-controlled variables that affect both your engagement and your exercise intensity.
- Incorporation of player heart rate and exercise targets.
- Inclusion of boss enemies, destructible objects
- Score keeping, exercise benchmarks, and player statistics”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“- Core ball physics, which allows the game to control distance moved by the player.
- Up to 4-person co-op multiplayer support, including voice chat and shared play space.
- A basic point system for accumulating score as you exercise.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“No, we intend to maintain the same price for the game during and after Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We will be directly working with the community on new concepts, ideas, and feedback through our Discord channel and the r/vrfit subreddit. You can find links to both under the External Links section. Please join us!”