Agency + Linearity = Narrative
Our Process
User agency defines the frame of our virtual stories. The bounding box around each digital world must be large enough to feel expansive yet sufficiently contained to foster linearity. Humans perceive the "real" world through a linear lens — narrative sequence allows us to categorize, prioritize, and move through a universe of complex decisions and experiences with meaning and intention. Virtual stories act on the same principles.
Our minds are wired to understand character-driven, causal sequences of events, and humans have leveraged these to transmit information since they first painted mammoths on cave walls. Our key research question is how to adapt that kind of linear narrative into an agentic space that not only acknowledges but embraces the fact that each user is guaranteed to notice different elements and make divergent choices?
The answer is a simple reframe. Stories conventionally force their audience down a path — but what if we simply showed you the path and let you decide to take it? How you do it would be your choice. At Maku XR we don't tell stories. We create worlds that inspire stories in you.
Our Story
Luis and Wyatt met at MIT. Wyatt was developing a VR experience in which the user embodies an octopus. Luis was composing programmatic sound design for a game where the player rock-climbs up a musical cliff. Wyatt showed Luis his early prototype of a project that would give birth to Maku XR called Painting Life, and Luis said "it needs music. I can make that." Two years, four headsets, five complete rebuilds, and seven versions of Unity later, they launched Painting Life on the Oculus Store and garnered over a thousand unpublicized organic installs in the first month. They'd also become best friends.
Wyatt Roy
Wyatt is a virtual reality artist who designs new ways to create and share immersive stories. His VR narratives focus on capturing and communicating nuanced human characters, the spaces in which we live, and the emotions embedded in our memories. In 2013 he co-founded the creative agency Maku, which used film-making and photography to pave the storytelling path for Maku XR. He holds a BA in Psychology from Stanford.
Twitter: @wyattroy
Luis Zanforlin
Luis is a virtual reality engineer and contemporary orchestral music composer. He currently works as a research associate and VR developer at MIT where he creates new media experiences and contributes to teaching virtual reality and immersive media. In 2019 he developed Qubit Arcade, a quantum computing VR interface for MIT which led him to co-found Maku XR. He holds diplomas in Film Production and Design from Vancouver Film School and a BA in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music.
Twitter: @LuisZanforlin
Instagram: zanfaluis