VR Experience/Game
Two-week Project (Team of 5)
My role: [ Producer, Sound Design (SFX and Music), Level Design ]
Team Member:
Ezra Hill (Programming, Level Design)
Liyi Tang (3D Art, Rigging, Animation)
Chao-yang Tseng(Programming, Level Design)
Laura Yang (2D Art, 3D Art, Rigging, Animation)
Game Overview:
You are Rabbit.
You did a bank heist together with K.J. but he got caught after hiding away the money.
You have now infiltrated into the prison system.
Help K.J. get out of that jail, away from the needy Warden who abuses the inmates.
And you will get your share.
Assigned Task (Prompt):
To design a VR experience where a guest/player has to help Character A achieve certain goal, but Character B, who intimidates Character A is in the way.
In this game, Character A is K.J. and Character B is the Warden, and the player is Rabbit, the corrupted guard.
Character A
VS
Character B
Game Design:
The idea of this game has always been a toybox-like, hands on experience where the player is in this god perspective controlling the environment. So the initial design was sort of like the picture below. We felt like this is a fun and natural way of playing utilizing the advantage of VR perspective and interaction.
Game Design:
The idea of this game has always been a toybox-like, hands on experience where the player is in this god perspective controlling the environment. So the initial design was sort of like the picture below. We felt like this is a fun and natural way of playing utilizing the advantage of VR perspective and interaction.
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But through playtesting, we realized that some of the places are hard to reach and the player has to walk around the space in order to perform certain interactions. We didn't quite like that because our map is likely going to grow longer while we build the level, and having a rectangular shape means the player has to travel horizontally in the physicals space to complete the interactions (which might be inconvenient as a bigger space is required to play the game).
Therefore, we decided to use a curved-shape map so that the player has equal distance of reach in any direction. Another plus side is, if we need to extend the map of the game, we can eventually extend the curve into a full circle and surround the player's body. In this case, they don't need to travel far away, and they can complete the level simply by turning around.
Initial map sketch
Final Map, in-game
Final map sketch
Final Map, in-game
Game Mechanics:
The focus of the game play is around the hands-on interactions, so we try to implement as many intuitive interaction as possible. Here are the three interaction we have implemented within the two weeks:
1. Lifting the door/button to open the door
2. Break glass to activate alarm distraction
3. Use crank to operate bridge
Screenshots:
