I did Bungee Jumping in VR and it was crazy fun

I guess you’ve heard it: the funniest experience on the AWE showfloor was “Anywhere Bungee VR” by the Japanese company Logilicity. Of course, I’ve tried it. I want to tell you more about this experience, and I’ll also try to analyze why it was so interesting for everyone.

Anywhere Bungee VR

Anywhere Bungee VR is a location-based experience to let you try the sensation of doing Bungee Jumping. It consists of a (patent-pending) machine that can put your body upside-down, with fans blowing air to your face, and software that lets you experience the sensation of falling from a great height to being very close to a street in the city of Tokyo.

The setup

The setup of the experience was a bit more complicated then expected, but everything was necessary to be sure that I was secured to the machine and I was not falling down to the floor (let’s say that no one wanted the sentence “If you die in the metaverse, you die in real life” to become true). Just in case, anyway, we were all required to sign a waiver, whose sense was basically

I was required to put my feet inside some sort of ankle lock, to make sure that the machine could lift me by my feet when I was upside down.

Additionally, I had a rope around my shoulders, which was later connected to the machine to give me a second harness to keep my whole body secured to the machine when I went upside-down.

Even if I was connected by a couple of security mechanisms, I was still asked to keep my hands on two handles I had in front of me. This way, everyone was sure that I would not have fallen down to the floor. The setup took around one minute to be performed, which is not much, but considering how quick the experience is, maybe it should become a bit shorter. Anyway, it is much better to spend one second more for the safety of the user than one second less, so I appreciated the care the team had in securing me to the machine.

The pre-jump

After the setup was completed, I was given a VR headset. I saw myself on a big metallic rail that was suspended very high over a city landscape.

I was told the city was the city of Tokyo. The scale of the representation of the city was huge; it was like every building was replicated. The size was impressive, I could see a very dense population of buildings in every direction I was looking at. The quality of the representation was not great, though: the buildings were very bare-bones, similar to white cubes. And there were no moving cars or people. I know that the city of Tokyo released some open-source point cloud of the city, maybe this map is a reconstruction of the city from that point cloud.

At a certain point, I started moving in the virtual world towards the edge of this big metallic arm. The movement was linear, but a bit bumpy, and the platform started to physically stutter to give me the sensation of the physical movement. I liked this haptic effect, it made the movement more realistic.

When I arrived at the end of the metallic arm, I could see the whole city. It was cool. Now it was time to jump.

The jump

The Logilicity employee asked if I was ready, and of course, I was. So he started chanting with the whole crowd 3…2…1… BUNGEE! And after he said “BUNGEE”, I was put upside down. The VR experience started moving me quickly down towards the floor, while the fan blew air to my face. The combination of the visuals with the haptics and the air on the face made the jump more believable. As soon as I arrived close to the floor, I was put up again and then down again, to simulate what happens with the elastic band of a bungee jump, which usually recoils up a bit before going down again.

After the jump, I was put again in the standard vertical position, all the harnesses were removed, and then I could go out. In total, my whole experience took just two minutes and a half. In the video below you can see all my experience there, with no commentary:

Why was it great?

Before writing this article, I spent some time wondering why we all loved this experience so much. I mean, falling down in VR is nothing new, I did it from day 2 I entered VR, and we are talking about 11 years ago. The graphics of the experience are not particularly compelling. And the machine to put you upside-down doesn’t seem overly complicated, either. So what is its secret recipe? Well, I think there are a few key points to discuss here:

• The falling down experience stimulates multiple senses. I’ve already fallen down from high places multiple times in VR, but usually, I was just at my desk with the headset. This experience, first of all, puts you physically upside-down, and then, while you fall down, it gives you some haptic vibrations and some air on your face through some fans installed under the machine. This combination of physical sensations makes the fall much more realistic than just doing that with the VR headset on your face. I can’t say it is as real as falling down in physical life, but it is for sure a nice replica of it. And since the fall is more realistic, you feel more adrenaline while you go down, and this is great
• It is not scary. Falling down was adrenaline, but it was not scary. A bit scary, but mostly fun, so I think it was in the sweet spot to make you excited but not worried
• The experience is quick. As I’ve said, in 2 minutes and a half, I did everything. There was a long line, but the line was moving pretty fast, so it was not annoying to wait for it. It was something you could do without too much planning
• The team is made up of nice people. The people there at the Logilicity booth had a clear passion for their work, and they just wanted to make people have fun. We could all perceive it, and this helped in creating a very positive atmosphere around the booth

• There is a strong social component to it. This is, in my opinion, one of the key points. This is not an experience you do completely alone. Yes, you are alone, but there are people in line waiting to try the experience that contribute to it. Everyone is looking, is smiling, and taking pictures of you. You feel at the center of attention, and this is something we humans deep inside always appreciate. And then the moment you jump, the team encourages everyone to scream “3…2…1…BUNGEE!”. So while you wait in line, every couple of minutes, you participate in this ritual of screaming for the jump of the current user, and this is fun (and makes waiting in line a nice experience). And when it’s your turn to jump, you feel the energy of everyone screaming for you, and that’s great. I think this is a genius thing that the team did: it transformed this experience into a social one, and sociality is something we all love
• It is viral. After you do this crazy experience, of course, you share it on all your social media and make everyone see the video of your performance. These people are for sure attracted to it and want to do it themselves, too, bringing new users to the booth.

I think Anywhere Bungee VR is the ideal attraction for whoever wants to offer something fun to the visitors of an event.

The scream

One peculiar thing about my experience there is that before jumping on the machine, I thought that since the guys were Japanese, and in some Japanese “movies” I, ehm, watch, girls usually scream loudly, I asked the people there if they wanted me to scream, too. They were happy about this idea, so when I had my jump, I made a very long squeaky scream. It was the signature of my performance, and you can watch it here (audio on, please):

Bungee Jumping in VR!

This brought me some unexpected consequences. I showed this video to Ori Inbar, the boss of AWE. At the final ceremony, Anywhere Bungee VR was awarded as Best In Show of AWE, and after the award was given, Ori from the stage asked, “Is Antony Vitillo here?”. I was very puzzled, I had not to introduce any award, and I was nominated for no award whatsoever, so I couldn’t understand what was happening. I stood up, confused, with all the big room full of people looking at me. Then Ori said, “Can you make your scream again?”. In that moment, I understood… so I filled my lungs with air and then “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” like the alarm of a house.

It was a lot of fun for everyone in the room. After the event, someone even jokingly asked me if I could offer this as a paid service. It turns out that there are more people willing to pay me for screaming than to develop VR applications…

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