Robert Pratten 
It’s typical to think of VR, AR and branching narrative as different disciplines or technologies but in our podcast we talk with Aoi Nakamura one of directors of WHIST, an immersive experience that combines them all.
The audience, wearing the low-cost GEAR VR headsets, explore a physical space (the headset uses the phone’s camera to allow the audience to see the space) until specific objects are recognized by AR software. The recognition triggers a 360 movie which can branch depending on your gaze (i.e. where you look).
At the end of the experience, each audience member gets a personalized psychometric profile based on the way they navigated the space and the 360 movies.
While WHIST is an artistic endeavor, it’s not hard to see how the approach could be used in training to explore complex spaces like the bridge of a ship or oil & gas rigs: the headset would guide the trainee through the real physical space and trigger pertinent video playback that might be, say, the dramatization of a crisis. During the 360 video crisis, the system tracks where the trainee is focusing attention and could allow them to trigger decisions with their gaze that de-escalates the unfolding drama. At the end of the session, the trainee gets a performance assessment about how they navigated the space and how they responded to the crisis.
