Manjit Bedi
student in Udacity VR Nanodegree program
https://www.udacity.com/course/vr-developer-nanodegree--nd017
Puzzler VR game
This project was an assignment to go through the process of documenting work.
This browser cannot play the embedded video file.
The video is the game running on an iPhone 6s. The game is an interpretation of the classic children’s game “Simon” made in Google cardboard using the Unity 3D game engine. A sequence of orbs light up & then user then tries to repeat the sequence to win the game.
Process
The persona is an example of a person who would play the game. There could be more than one persona of course.
Persona
Age - twenties
Occupation- someone working in creative industries / student
Name- Suzie Switch
quote - “everyday could be Caturday”
Likes to try new things, have fun & consume entertaining games & media on her smartphone. Lives in the zeitgeist.
Their experience level with VR - Suzie has heard the hype & is curious - may have tried a few VR experiences.
Sketches
I was thinking a colourful world like something out of Japanese anime and Adventure Time. Ideally, the building would be a curved structure (Note: the actual end result was a stone building using the provided assets).
User Testing
User 1
Initials S.L.- User had not used Google cardboard before & was very enthusiastic to try it out.
Q - what do you think of the scale of the room?
He said the sense of scale was odd with respect to height - he felt like the floor was at his knees.
For the depth of room & looking to either side felt fine; he felt the setting was convincing.
Q: what do you think of the atmosphere of the scene experienced in VR?
He liked the old building feel & was also intrigued the world outside glimpsed through the doorways; he wondered what the outdoor location would be about to what the experience is.
I mentioned that ultimately it would be a puzzle game in VR.
I did explain how the final game would involve moving from outside to inside then outside again
Overall he liked the experience & what it may be indicating; he is curious to see the finished game.
He questioned the lighting & the the torches; it would be good to add more visual reinforcement that there are light sources.
Changes made following testing:
- added torches to the interior
User 2
Initials F.D. has some experience with trying out VR; avid computer game player
He noticed Z fighting with geometry
General impression - the experience was ok in it’s current form
The game scene is blocked by the canvas panel - what are the spheres for he asked.
He said making the panel translucent would be better.
He figured out interaction to click on button to get 2nd panel without being prompted by me.
Changes made following testing:
- made the start panel canvas transparent
User 3
Initials J.O., 3D modeller & visual artist; has experienced VR before; avid game player
I asked J. to try out the working game with the orbs logic implemented.
He did find the motion a bit fast moving between waypoints.
I was using the same sound for the gaze enter & also clicking on an orb. J. found that not so good & I agree. I should have been using a different sound effect or remove the sound effect from playing in the enter gaze method.
He also noticed problems in the 3D scene
- the particle flames go through geometry
- there is some z fighting with the meshes
- also some strange color flashes when changing the camera orientation on some floor tiles
I made the following changes following user feedback & testing:
- adjusted the durations for moving between way points
- I also re-woked some od the building geometry
Break down
The game starts up and the user can see a panel with a button on it.
When the user taps the button, the camera is moved to inside the building & the game will start after a few moments. A sequence is played out by the orbs lighting up 1 by 1.
If the user is successful in playing the sequence, the camera is moved to out side the building and another GUI panel is displayed. The player can chose to play again.
One user expected the torches to be lit; I added some particle effects using some examples pre-fab provided by Unity. The frame rate was fine on an iPhone 6s.
Conclusion
It was a good experience to go through making this game in VR. The user testing was very revealing; it is always good to get constructive criticism.
Using the linear movement between waypoints is a bit jarring in the game. This could use more work to finesse it. It makes me think if should be are any metrics on how long a non interactive sequence should take to convey an event & action but at the same time maintain the flow of the user experience. This is something to research; if I was to do it over; I would base the size of the building on some meassuremetns. I would build a scene with some simple geometry & try out the movement between waypoints to find a balance between distance & duraiton.
Next Steps
If I had access to more time & resources (art team), I would like to make the game more in line with my thoughts about the design & improve on the user experience.
I would also put more animation into the game to make it move visually interesting during the non interactive parts of the user experience.
The game could use some tweaking:
- add a prompt to select the orbs after the sequence is played in the first play through
- make the building smaller in the Z dimension
- rebuild the building to fix z-fighting problems etc
- have more objects in the exterior
- add a skybox that adds to the atmosphere of the game
- make the terrain more visually appealin