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A former Pixar and Bungie animator is heading up development on an interactive movie for PlayStation VR.
The game itself is called Gary the Gull, and the technology powering it will be made available to other developers too.
It tells a story like a movie, but it’s interactive like a game,” Tom Sanocki said of the title. You start on a beach with a cooler full of tasty food in front of you, and because it’s in Virtual Reality it looks and feels like you’re actually there.
Then a seagull lands next to you — and starts talking! You can respond to him — you can talk back, answer his questions by nodding or shaking your head, or just ignore him. He tries to distract you by making you look away, and if you lean in too close he’ll jump back.
Gary the Gull was particularly fun for us to make because we didn’t do it alone. We partnered with our friends at Motional, a VR creative company founded by Mark Walsh — an ex-Pixar writer-director/animation supervisor who made movies for 18 years at Pixar and directed the Partysaurus Rex Pixar short film.
This is our first step in making characters in VR games feel engaging and real. We’re excited to hear what you think and what we can do to make the next set of games and interactive movies even better.”
Sanocki spent 11 years at Pixar working on films such as Finding Nemo, Cars and Up. He was then at Bungie for four years working on Destiny.
Here’s a trailer:
