About - The player races a pod through different dimensions of a sci fi space environment, competing with other guests to get the fastest time.
Timeline - 2 weeks
Roles - 3D Artist
Tools - Unity (Particle Effects) / Autodesk Maya
Platform- Meta Quest Pro and 9D VR Egg Chair
Contributions - Designed the controller interface to create the sense of driving a real vehicle
- Built the wooden board support for the Thrustmaster steering wheel, joy stick and Xbox adaptable controller
- Used feedback from playtesting to iterate the user experience, making the controls more intuitive
- Modelled the pod the player drives and used Unity Particle Effects to create the flames coming out of the thrusters to enhance the sense of speed.
Using an Xbox Adaptable controller, we were able to re map the controls in Unity and use them as inputs for the Egg Chair. As they were made for the PS2, sometimes the feedback wasn't always immediate and satisfying
Using Unity particle effects, I created the flames coming out of the thrusters
The 3D model of the pod I created before the stripes were changed to yellow
Prompt - Create a world that is fun for the end of semester festival
We were exposed to a wide range of platforms that we could use for this round. The rest of the team were very taken by the 9D VR Egg Chair, so we decided to use that. As we had to make something that was simple, fun and could be enjoyed by a range of audiences of different ages, I began seeking inspiration from arcade games.
As the feedback from the chair is so intense, we thought a racing game could potentially leverage its features at the best potential. As we were encouraged to be experimental and bold this round, I wanted to create an interesting interface the player would use. As it was to be a racing game, I thought feedback could be more satisfying and realistic if the player had an actual steering wheel to control their vehicle as opposed to the joystick on the Quest 2 controllers.
As I had no experience in physical computing, I had to seek help from staff at the Entertainment Technology Centre. They advised and helped me in building the control board. As the design of the vehicle changed from a motorcycle to a pod, we thought of ways to incorporate the large joystick to control ascension/descension and added boost and accelerate controls. All of these would be intensified by feedback from the chair.
Like many other racing games, we added obstacles for the player to avoid. However, our goal became to make the player enjoy the feeling of going as fast as possible. I tried to intensify this feeling by added flames coming from the thrusters in the players view and have more assets placed along the track to get the sense of moving at high speed.
Post Mortem
- In terms of design, I learnt too late that restricting player movement to a path, this greatly restricted the feedback possibilities of the Egg Chair. In retrospect, we should have made it a flying game where the player moves around an arena to achieve their objectives, so we could make better use of the chair's movement.