twitch plays oasis

virtual realities
2019
9 weeks
Twitch Plays Oasis makes solitary VR experiences more social and unpredictable, opening it up to the public to interact via the live streaming platform Twitch.
tools & methods
Prototyping
Unity
C#
GravitySketch
Twitch
Oculus
collaboration with
ArtCenter Immersion Lab
the team
Sina Grebrodt
Amanda Wallgren
supervisor
Jenny Rodenhouse
background
This project emerged from four workshop sessions where we explored VR, Unity, and photogrammetry. Inspired by the potential of VR, my teammate and I wanted to experiment with the dynamic between solitude and social interaction within virtual spaces. We were also intrigued by the "Iceberg phenomenon," which refers to the contrast between what’s present in a VR scene and what the user can actually perceive in the headset.
outcome
OASIS is a scene where the VR participant becomes the observer, while the active players are those streaming via Twitch. These players interact with the scene by steering game objects over different trigger zones using the Twitch comment section. The more players actively participate, the more populated the virtual scene becomes. Without active input from the Twitch community, the scene essentially fades away. This concept flips traditional gaming roles by positioning the VR player within the streamed scene as an observer, without the ability to make decisions.
my role
Together with my partner Sina, I was involved in every aspect of the project. We co-created the concept, shared coding responsibilities, and alternated between scene-building and testing in Unity.

02/03

Twitch plays OASIS

Switching the roles of the classic gamer vs. the participant

OASIS redefines traditional gaming dynamics by turning the VR participant into a passive observer, while Twitch users become the active players. Through creatively “misusing” the Twitch comment field, viewers steer floating game objects across trigger zones, shaping the scene in real time. The more users engage, the more crowded the scene becomes — without their input, the world fades. This challenges familiar gaming norms, giving agency to the crowd and removing it from the person inside the headset.

VR participant's view

Twitch participants view

The project misuses Twitch’s commenting feature to interact with the ecosystem and VR-inhabitant.

Viewers steer floating game objects across trigger zones.

Moving far outside from the playing area will cause drought and a sandstorm will appear...

When plants grow tall enough the players will see birds appear...

After spending a long time in the scene the area will start to flood...

03/03

exploration

Developing key-interactions

We began by exploring two key questions:

1. How does VR as a medium enable solitude vs. social experiences?
2. The ‘Iceberg’ phenomenon – what exists in a scene versus what the VR participant can actually see?
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These guided our early prototypes, helping us define the relationship between presence, perception, and participation in VR.

Developing the Aesthetics

Seeing the cubes grow and shrink, we envisioned an ecosystem of fantastical-looking plants growing in an otherwise unpopulated desert. This became the inspiration for the aesthetics of the project. We modeled the final assets in GravitySketch and brought them into Unity – trying a few different expressions, playing around with color and light, until we found a look that we liked.

Refining the experience

Twitch has a strong culture around emotes, so we replaced the directional commands (left, right, forward, back) with some of the platform’s most popular emotes. This to make interaction feel more native and playful.

Our first goal was to make the cubes grow whenever another cube passed over its trigger zone, this established the basic interaction.

Next, we tackled the challenge of making the cubes shrink again once the moving cube—now replaced by a cloud—exited the trigger zone.

After getting the interactions to work in Unity, we connected the scene to Twitch.

We then assigned each cube movement commands—left, right, forward, and backward—allowing Twitch users to control them through the chat.

We envisioned an ecosystem of plants growing in an otherwise unpopulated desert.

Testing the concept with others for the first time

Once the project was up and running, we invited three people to join via Twitch and one person to experience the scene in VR. We wanted to test how intuitive the controls were for Twitch users and what the experience felt like inside the headset.

We quickly saw how important timing and feedback are when using Twitch commands, especially with the slight delay. The VR participant naturally fell into a more passive, observational role, which supported our aim of flipping traditional player dynamics.

Due to time constraints, we ran the test in a lab setting with all participants present. Testing with remote users would’ve added a new layer of complexity—something I’d love to explore further.

Retrospective & Learnings

Working with VR, or writing any code, was completely new for both me and my project partner – also designing for 1:1, full scale, experiences. This shift required a new mindset and workflow, and much of the process was trial and error. We developed a way of working where one of us stayed in VR while the other implemented changes in Unity, allowing us to give real-time feedback without constantly switching in and out of the headset. I quickly realized how valuable this collaborative setup was—doing this alone would’ve taken much longer.

Finally, what also interests me is how OASIS might evolve over time. We never saw it as something that needs constant interaction, but rather as a space people can drift in and out of. Sometimes it might be empty, other times full—changing the experience depending on the moment.

Huge appreciation to my project partner Sina <3
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