Sakura: A VR musical exploration game with MIDI keyboard in Japanese Zen environment

Sakura is a VR musical exploration game with MIDI keyboard in Japanese Zen environment, which provides music-creating experience in immersive environment and uses MIDI keyboard as the in-game interface instead of traditional VR controllers. In this work, the author explores a novel way to create an immersive and entertaining music playing experience by using virtual reality technology, physical instrument interface and exploration game concept. All the events and actions in the game are generated and controlled by user's MIDI input so that playing the game is playing music itself. According to players' feedback, they enjoy this immersive magical music journey with their own input and feel relaxed and calm after playing. A four-minute gameplay demo can be found here:https://youtu.be/58HPwiiap7I.