Category: Spring 2019

I’ve had a few ideas for my final project. Here are some of the things I’ve been bouncing around:

1. A tycoon style cake shop game where the player has certain goals to make per day. This is largely inspired by my love for these computer games like Diner Dash or Hot Dog Bush as purposeless as they might be ultimately. I have ultimately decided not to go in this direction as I would want to put a lot of effort into character development, into creating an alternate universe with meaning and I don’t have the tech capability in Maya yet. Additionally, the rhythm of the experience would be particularly important to me and I think I’d need at least two months of user testing to get that perfect balance of speed and seeing what movements/baking processes need to be simplified while still retaining the meaning of baking a cake.
2. Some sort of inceptiony VR experience in which the viewer builds their own VR experience within the environment rather than needing access to software like Unity to create VR. They are then able to view what they built. It’s especially the part of wearing a headset while already wearing a headset that leaves me unsure of how to proceed.
3. A sort of whack-a-mole in a beautiful, mountainous alternate reality where post it notes keep appearing as an interface not leaving until you’ve clicked them to convey the never ending to do list. But I want the viewer to have a way to break the cycle and I can’t really think of a creative way that makes the most of VR to do so.

After reaching a dead end in all my project thoughts, I decided to revisit my previous projects to understand my biggest takeaways from them and to see what input they could provide to my final project.

From my first project, I really liked the concept of using VR in meditation given what an immersive space it is. I have found myself using the world I created and playing a guided meditation in the background as I get easily distracted in the physical world. My second project made me realize how important user testing is, but also how users tend to gravitate towards the destructive: throwing things in the wrong places, teleporting into colliders, etc.

Can I confess? Despite all our readings and looking at cool VR projects, I still am not entirely sold on the necessity of VR. I understand its incredible applications for museums, medical training, marketing, etc. However, I get so irritated when I see a project that has been made for VR for the sole purpose of it being made in VR. In other words, I think a lot of VR out there doesn’t maximize the potential of VR and hasn’t been designed for VR. It’s simply a game from the physical world adapted for a VR headset. Thus, for my final project, I want to create something that has a clear advantage and purpose for being designed in VR. This, combined with my insights from my earlier class projects, have made me realize that I want to create a therapeutic project like my first that is in line with the theme of “Renewal.” However, I do want to try something that is different than a guided meditation that also explores the user’s destructive tendencies. Sometimes when you are in need for something cleansing, you don’t want to meditate-you want to break things! This also has the added benefit of being something that maximizes VR. First, many of us just want to shatter 30 plates, but very few of us can afford that or want to deal with the aftermath of cleaning our mess up. Second, this is an experience that would benefit from an immersive space like VR because one could look around the room for objects to break and has an immediacy that is conducive to the need for feedback when we have strong emotions.

One of the key interactions I want to have is shattering objects. I shall begin with the quintessential plate! I’ve watched a few youtube tutorials and it seems that I must adjust the mesh in Blender. Today, I spent a couple of hours just figuring out the horrendous Blender interface and I finally figured out how to fracture an object’s mesh. I got a simple plate fbx model from turbosquid and created a particle system for it. Using this particle system, I created fractured objects for the plate. So, thus, it is a total of 100 shards! I imported the model into Unity.

I’ve added the Throwable and Interactable SteamVR scripts to the parent object which I have made the unbroken plate. However, when the plate collides with something, it should shatter into the 100 shards.

  foreach (Rigidbody rigid in brokenObj.GetComponentsInChildren<Rigidbody>())
            rigid.AddExplosionForce(force, transform.position, radius);
    }

I hope to loop through each rigidbody that is a child of the parent plate (thus each shard) and use the Unity function AddExplosionForce as it seems to give the feel that I want to the shattering.

I’ve been working on this for nearly an hour with very little progress, so I think I’ll come back to the script when I’m in a fresher state of mind. For now, I have implemented the teleport system. This time, I’ve learned from past mistakes and I think I’ve coordinated the floor and space such that the teleport is more natural. I’m not sure if I will keep the teleport. When I sort of mentally mapped out where each interaction would be, it felt a bit tight so having a teleport system would give extra flexibility. I just added it because I’m not sure how much space I’ll need as the interactions evolve and also not sure what exactly our space will be in terms of dimensions at the IM showcase.

For the environment, I’m debating a few options. One, a retro looking living room. Two, an office space with cubicles, etc. Three, a dojo that is meditative but also fight-conducive.

I debated changing my idea because I’m not sure if I can get the right rhythm needed for this experience. Perhaps destruction is not my forte. I kept daydreaming about making a VR experience that was underwater and having fish blow giant bubbles that the user could pop.

But, I shall keep going at this a bit longer.

For the shattering objects script, I’ve tried many different approaches. The difficulty lies in the way that my blender model is created and that specific object hierarchy. I tried to take the unbroken plate so that when it collides with the floor or wall, the unbroken plate layer is removed and so the shards remain. I wanted to add an explosion force, so I need to loop through all the shards and add a rigidbody and then use that rigidbody for the Unity method AddExplosionForce. If the shards are there from the beginning as they are part of the object, I shall have to keep them affixed to the unbroken layer. I played around with doing a Fixed Joint on them but it keeps shaking–think it has something to do with the box colliders. When I check OnTrigger, the shaking goes away at least.

I think it will be better to unpack the object and separate the shards from the unbroken layer. When the unbroken layer collides with the wall or floor, the unbroken part will be destroyed and the shards will spawn.

This approach is working so far, but am having trouble with where the objects are spawning. At first, I did them at the transform.position of the unbroken object, but they would spawn under the ground. Next, I am respawning them at the initial contact point, but they float above the ground when I do this (I have frozen their y position because they initiate below the ground then).

I’ve added a public offset variable and set it to -3 for now. But the shards just float aimlessly after removing the y constraint on each individual shard.

I’ve kept the offset and removed the y frozen constraints on the individual shards, but frozen the y on the parent object. This seems to be working for now.

Some initial bugs: if you throw the plate like a frisbee, the shards are spawned in an unnatural circle shape. If you don’t hit the plate hard enough, it doesn’t break, but I think that’s okay honestly. If the plate is thrown in such a way it collides twice, it will spawn the shards twice, but this is also no big deal as it’s just more fragments and it seems to be rare. Just the first bug is something to work on.

To address this, I’ve changed the transform position of the individual shards so it looks more like a pile. But, when I throw it, many of the shards spawn under the floor so only a few shards are actually created visibly on the ground. I will table this for now and address this later as I want to create my other interactions.

I also want to add some sound in. Because I am destroying the object, I cannot add an Audio Source to the plate and expect to get the audio source component and play the clip. I played around with creating an empty game object, but I’m a bit too lazy to get everything to line up correctly. I chanced upon a Unity method called PlayAtSpot which essentially instantiates an Audio Source and destroys it after it plays the clip. I used the contact.point to instantiate the Audio Source. I am not sure how expensive it is to create and destroy an audio source every time.

 AudioSource.PlayClipAtPoint(shatterSound, contact.point);

I got a friend to test the plate shattering and they ended up throwing it at the ceiling which I hadn’t thought about. I added the collider tag so that it will also shatter if it hits the ceiling. The reason why I need collider tags is that it would otherwise start the script with any collision like the hand or the cabinet it starts on.

After seeing how much people enjoyed throwing objects around in the recycling project, I thought I’d create some bins for people to try to aim the balls into. If they hit the box, the ball disappears and a gray line appears where the player hit the ball from to see if they can get it further and further, like a game with themselves.

I found the boxes from a medieval containers pack. I added a bouncy physics material to the ball, but I find that it is too bouncy and it just goes on forever. I better add some friction and reduce the bounciness. For now, a dynamic friction of .3 and a bounciness of .9 is working well. For the interaction, I will add a script to the ball so that if it collides with a collision object with the tag “box”, the ball will disappear and a cube will appear where the player was. Okay, it’s a technically a cube object, but more of a white line. I wasn’t sure which object of the player prefab to reference for the transform.position, so ended up doing the bodycollider which seems okay for now.

I’m also having trouble with the inside walls, but think this has to do with the normals, so that Unity doesn’t waste resources rendering the inside of buildings. I ended up just flipping the walls that weren’t showing up.

I added a hatchet so people can smash things! If you pick it up a certain way, it really does feel like you are holding a hammer. However, if you pick it up from another side, it feels very unnatural ofc. I suppose just like in real life, people will put it down and pick it up from another side that feels more natural and functional for the task they want to do. I wonder if there’s a way in unity though to only for a certain part to be picked up from. Perhaps I can see if the prefab can be broken up into the handle and blade part.

When I only have the throwable script on the body, the handle and blade separate. I will ask people in the class on Monday if they have any ideas.

I’m not sure what to do with the walls. I wanted to make them crack if you hit them with the hatchet, so tried playing around with the texture of the plaster to add cracks. But, I don’t think it will work out because the cracks need to appear from the point where it’s hit and I have no idea how I could do that. I’m debating whether they should glow or shake or some sort of feedback, so you hit it three to seven times before it falls.

Also debating what background sound to put in the room. I started watching videos of real “rage rooms” to get ideas and they seem terribly wasteful as people smash plates, etc.

My first thought was to do a song like the battle music in those superhero movies. Something energetic and pumped up, but not necessarily angry. Then, started thinking about Kanye West’s song Power. But, it might be too intense for the environment I have. Then, I considered a couple of Arctic Monkeys song instrumentals.

For now, I shall do the instrumental to the song Laughter Lines by Bastille. The choice of music has to be perfect! I asked a friend to try out the environment with this music and he liked it.

After the feedback from in-class playtesting, I realize I lack a sense of cohesion. Not that cohesion is a requirement for a sense of story, but I think it helps create a meaningful experience. I lack cohesion in the sense of the power involved in the various movements of the player and the feeling that I want to evoke in the reader. For instance, I have the player throwing a ball and it is bouncy and also very hard to get into the box. The player would likely be discouraged from continuing on with throwing the ball, which as we learned in Games and Play last summer, it is very important to keep your player motivated through small successes indicated by feedback. Additionally, the feel of the ball’s bounciness is light and playful which is too much of a juxtaposition with the smashing of the plates. I’m pretty satisfied with the plate smashing though I need to figure out how to not let the amount of new objects being instantiated (the plate fragments) affect the performance. Also, I got negative feedback on the music, so I shall switch to Arctic Monkeys again! I also got feedback that the outside was quite creepy.

After the playtesting session, I realize I need to ask myself: how do I want the player to feel during the experience? I think I was so obsessed with the idea of relieving stress that I didn’t really get into the specifics. I want the user to feel powerful, like they can achieve anything. I want there to be a sense of relief of course in terms of the satisfaction derived from the interactions. I also want the user to feel a sense of resolution at the end.

Getting at the core of this, I think I will remove the ball throwing. I’m not really sure what’s going on myself with it…there’s just too little incentive to enter that interaction. It is not an easy decision because I really like the concept of a line appearing at the player’s position if they successfully got the ball into the box.

I also will make the walls get destroyed each time the hatchet collides with the wall. Before, I had a count of 3, so the player had to hit it 3 times before it would collide, but that was rather annoying.

To replace the ball interaction, I want to break printers with the ax as well. I created 3 new meshes (each mesh a different level of destruction) for the printer in Blender for it to shatter. Each time the ax collides with the printer, it instantiates the mesh for the next level of destruction.

Trying this out, it’s not the cleanest instantiation and there’s not much satisfaction. I think I will just make the printers explode. Essentially, I am writing a script that will instantiate a particle prefab. I am having trouble with making the explosion occur at the exact site of collision so I created a ContactPoint object. I’ve also reduced the radius of the particle system so it’s a more contained explosion and added an explosion sound.

I can’t seem to get the walls to work correctly…some just won’t be destroyed. This seems to correlate with whether the body has also collided with the wall at some point. Thus, I’ve changed the function to be OnCollisionStay rather than OnCollisionEnter, so that it is checking for the right collider tag constantly. I’ve also checked and adjusted each box collider individually. This doesn’t seem to work either. I have decided to also add all the parts of the body, that is the Player prefab, as a tag ‘Player’ that is one of the tags checked during collision. This isn’t working either.

I’ve added a script to respawn the hatchet on the table if it falls below the y-position of the floor. Also, added fade in to the camera and the instruction UI.

During user testing, the sunset I had was deemed to be sort of spooky. I want to create an open sky and a forest outside.

It doesn’t exactly match the feel of the room. Though I am trying to create a clear difference, this is just too different. I also want something for the player to interact with outside the room but not go out of the room.

I began with bubbles, thinking the user could pop the bubbles with a raycast. The bubbles were too light. The raycast was awkward with the teleport and picking up objects. Then, I thought I should confine the raycast to a container object, like a laser gun, so that the raycast would be active only when that object is picked up. I found a tutorial called ‘Let’s Try Shooter’ on Unity that I used to start creating the laser gun system. But, I thought the laser gun had too light of a feeling.

I remember how powerful the feeling derived from the VR maze game was. The bow and arrow was a very satisfying interaction. I think for my game I will have the bow and arrow instead of the laser gun. I am just using the longbow from the SteamVR system.

Okay but what will people shoot with the bow and arrow? I liked the idea of having floating islands in the sky but not sure what interaction to create with the islands and I cannot find any suitable assets for the islands. I thought of creating a cloud system, but it doesn’t have the desired effect and is kind of messy looking. I started thinking of things that evoke nostalgia which is usually a sort of relieving feeling.

I started getting fixed on this vision of a carnival with a colorful marquis and balloons. I decided to go off on this tangent and started making a sea of colorful balloons in the open sky around the room. The bow and arrow would be used to pop the balloons, though I wonder whether balloons are heavy enough to make the user feel powerful.

I really like bubbles and find them so relieving, so I decided to still incorporate them into the experience. They’d come out of the balloon being popped. I really like the popping sound of the balloons.

I created alternate shaders to give the balloons different colors and a certain reflection when the light hits.

I started creating a marquis by scratch because I couldn’t find any suitable assets. I wanted to make ribbons that the player could wrap around the columns like a maypole. But, given the constraints of my knowledge of Blender and the time I have left, I am just going to make a marquis from rectangles.

It actually doesn’t look that bad. It’s very colorful but I want the user to look up at it. I think I’ll create a particle system of lights dancing down.

I can’t figure out how to get the music to change!!!! I picked this specific piano cover of Kygo’s Firestone song because it has a tingle of nostalgia and is generally positive sounding without being overly upbeat…a sort of perfect resolution song. I ended up creating the script to play the audio source and stop it. I used the PlayClipAtPoint to create a second audio source to play the new clip for the ending which is triggered by all the walls being destroyed.

Development blog #1. 15/04/2019.

Atoka has been working on the environment leaving me to work with the scripts. The setup was that our project takes place in a dungeon crypt which looks something like this:

After dealing with the light settings and applying a more darker skybox (to make the crypt darker) I have encountered a small problem when I started testing the environment in the VR headset. Due to the fact that we have quite a couple of lights (18 light sources), the computer can’t handle it and simply crashes (blue screen). Our professor suggested us to use lightmapped textures to replace the light sources.

Development blog #2 5/5/2019

We have implemented most of the interactions including the cauldron and the feedback system of the cauldron. The cauldron has an invisible collider at its bottom. Anything that collides with it, gets destroyed and plays the particle system as can be seen in the picture below. User testing was also done to get feedback based on the user perspective rather than the creator perspective. Based on the user feedback we have added some teleportation points and and turned the gravity off since it was very easy. And now when the objects are released. I have started working on the scripts, started to create the script that will store the data in the cauldron, but failed miserably :/. Atoka in the meanwhile was finishing of the environment and doing the voice over (special thanks to Sebastian Caro and Ahmed Meshref) Also we have completed the lightmap using light emission textures

Development blog #3 20/5/2019

The final scripts left to be done until the game is finished. In the past week we have completed the final scripts such as :
-winning list generation
-printing that list on the clipboard
-restarting the game
-game over/winning screen
-playing sounds whenever they are supposed to

Just some finishing moves and user testing and we got this:

Here are some screenshots of the final version:

April 15

Thought Process about the idea

1. Player is located a simple and plain room with a door
   • is there anything the player can interact with in the room? A mug on the side table, a pillow?
   • Hints in the room to what the closet holds? Poster on the wall about different worlds, closed doors
   • what will instigate the user to open the door
2. Player opens the closet door and finds an ordinary closet
   • whats inside the closet? boxes, clothes, a light bulb hanging above?
3. Player enters the closet and closes the door behind them. Its dark at first but
   • how would the player know to close the door while their inside
4. After a few seconds of darkness, things start to appear, glowing and floating around them. The door is still visible to them, in the same place. Eerie music starts to play in the background
   • What interactions are they able to do inside
   • how would I limit their movement
   • switching scenes and knowing when the door is closed to initiate the other world to begin
5. if player opens the door again, they are back where they started in the closet, in the room
   • how would I switch back to the original environment without it being too abruptly
   • maybe if the user is facing the door the effects stop, if they are facing any other side it begins

Actions in VR

• interacting with the door;
  • how would you grab it
  • is there tilt
  • how to close
  • can you push it
• switching scene 1;
  • detecting if the door is closed then playing scene
  • switching the scene
• inside normal wardrobe;
  • carrying box
  • pushing box
• the other world;
  • floating objects
  • glowing effect
  • able to push around those objects/grab/throw
• switching scene 2;
  • knowing when the player is facing the door or close to it
  • calming the effects of this other world, fading to black
  • open the door and switching back to the room/closet scene

Inspiration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRyR71oHOb8&t=59s

Instructional Videos

Notes

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April 17

Door Struggles

Creating a door that is interactive and immersive is the first thing I looked at, I want to make a door when you can physically turn the knob then push the door. I feel like having such a move will add more onto the users experience.

as I followed the instructions of a youtube video on how to make this possible, at the end the door would work but as it opens it would open vertically. messed around with the numbers but each one would give me another way the door can rotate but never the actual right way.

seeing how much time I have spent invested in making a door work, I figured it would be best to just stick with the animation and focus on the other things in the environment.

April 22

The VR Headset keeps crashing and not connecting, so I decided on beginning to design the room instead. I want to make it modern and simple. Thinking adding a TV as well. Ill see if ill be able to add a video interface for the TV as a newsfeed playing.

still brainstorming of what could be behind the door; the main idea I’ve got so far is having the door act as a secret entryway to a superhero secret hideout/dungeon

I already included some clues alluding to a superhero persona. I feel like having something that ties these two environments together is important for a complete story that is well rounded. By changing certain objects materials I was able to accomplish putting my own touch and messages on items around the room

April  29

Tried adding light probes but it kept glitching the scene and walls &

April 30

What could I have the player do in the second environment/room if I go along with the superhero narrative.

• shooting range?
• buttons that activate something
• boxing bag
• a library
• futuristic screen, map

Two people play tested my project today, they gave me some feedback about the feel of the room and the sizing. As well as the wardrobe being too stuffy?

Began working on the hidden lair part, I wanted to include stairs that lead down, but

1. creating stairs with big enough steps for teleportation makes it seem weird and unrealistic
2. complicating my project too much.

May 7

Switched some things up so now “You’re an alien & you go to an alternate universe” is the direction I will take now

Think about how will the player move from scene 1 to scene 2

you find a wardrobe with a hidden door/hole? do you press something and be transported? is there a portal you walk into? how will it work

the player will look around the room for clues, explore.. does the user need to pick up something with them and place it somewhere

like a ticket to outer space?

New Storyboard

• you wake up in a room with amnesia of who (what) you are, and you start to look around the room for clues
• you find a ___________ , but you don’t think it has much importance
• you head towards the door and find yourself in a closet or storage room that is quite cluttered with suitcases
• behind all these items, you notice another door? or a small crawling space? with a hole for ________ to be placed in, and you remember your saw it in the room
• if ____________ is placed in the hole, you get transported to outer space. where you belong

Giving the user a choice in the second scene; be good & Save humanity/Earth, be evil & destroy it. Should I label these options or should it just be a surprise, having them choose unknowingly, but they won’t understand if I do that so..

things to focus on for now;

• fix closet area
• key to open door
• fix outer space environment
• add more audio
• doors are too small? you are too tall? check that
• animate door 1 to open
• UI screen
• animate drawers to open?

May 8 

focus on:

• fixing the lighting in both worlds, make the items static and add light maps
• fixing the players location and figuring out how to keep the alien hands in scene 2
• why does the key fly? .. should I keep it that way?

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Playtesting:

• users with no VR experience find it hard to move around
• I noticed most people will explore the room first before heading to the door
• even if they don’t they must find the key to reach the other side
• player wouldn’t notice a door behind the suitcases. are there too many? should I add a light being the door

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May 10

Adding audio clips;

• sound coming from behind door #2 to draw the user there?
• a radio in the room?
• outer space scene, will the robot speak?

May 11

have an option in scene 2. What could happen in outer space, what could the user do? destroy the earth (the earth that you were on in scene 1, the room)

May 12

• edit UI screen in the beginning
• clock movement
• fix audio
• choose; can they open drawers or not (too many actions in scene 1, not enough in scene 2. focus )
• animate robot, him being static looks weird
• make the button that opens door 1 move and more obvious to spot
• put a hint in the wardrobe on a post it for the user to move the suitcases
• add more things in the room about parallel worlds
• add a way to restart scene
• add labels to the buttons in scene 2
• what is the robot doing? whats his purpose if he has any
• the rotation of the earth is due to animation, change it to a script to make it smoother

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the button for destroy leads up to the earth exploding, easy. But sparing the earth.. what would happen? Nothing? what about a user playing the game for the first time, such a button would basically do nothing to them. they wouldn’t understand the context. I need visual/auditory cues that you have in fact Spared the earth.

• a glow from behind
• angelic “Ahhh” sound

I really wanted to work with the “close the door” idea, and what immediately came to mind was inspired from the movie Howls Moving Castle. Where in the movie there is a ‘moving house’ that is somewhat alive with a special front door with a dial next to it. As you rotate the dial, the castle takes you to a specific place.

But as I kept sketching out the idea, I did not seem to be able to make a story or set pathway to the concept…

Sticking with the closing door idea, I thought of different movies where behind doors held a different or unusual world. I found inspiration from movies like ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ and ‘Monsters Inc.’

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And what these both ideas had in common was that the door usually led to a normal closet setting, but at other times a whole different world. Branching from that concept I wanted to recreate that in the VR world.

The player would be placed in the setting of a plain and simple bedroom with one door. Drawn to the door, as they open it they discover it simply to be a normal closet filled with ordinary items. The twist is if the player ‘closes the door’ with them inside, they will be faced with mystical things floating around them and realize they are no longer in their mundane room anymore. The door would still be visible to them in that world though, and if opened again, they would be back where they started; the closet and room.

Project Title: Windows XPerience

Team member: Junior, Ju Hee, Adham

For this project, we will go back in time to revisit a staple piece of technology: a Windows XP computer with the classic green valley and blue sky background. Our inspiration came after a rigorous brainstorming session were we touched base on a lot of ideas that interested us. After presenting some of the ideas to the class and after further deliberation amongst our group, we decided that this idea provided the best balance between abstract storytelling and realistic implementation considering the timeframe and themes available. The theme our piece will be based on is: “close the door” and we hope to do so in an interesting way, giving the user the possibility to decide the ending of a story where, inevitably, the door will be closed.

As seen in the Scene 1, the user will be in a room with his old-style windows computer appearing in front of him/her. As he/her clicks on it, he will be sucked inside the computer, shadowing the idea presented by Richard Moore in the Disney Animated film Wreck it Ralph 2. In order to escape the computer, the user will have to click on a set of icons in a predefined sequence. Each icon will transport the user into a different scene, and it is up to the user to click on the right set of icons to escape.

Possible Assets:

• Windows XP Icons
• Furniture for the room
• Laptop
• Paint brushes (Paint Program)

Interactions to Design and Code:

• Clicking on the icons
• Scene Manager to move from one scene to another

Sound:

• God-like voice that tells the user the situation he is trapped in and gives him clues to possibly escape the computer
• Sound effects for clicking on different icons
• Sound effect of getting absorbed into the monitor
• Peaceful background music when the user is in the green valley

Lighting:

• Stark contrast in lighting between the room and the inside of the computer.

Our initial idea was to tell the story of the development of the UAE, based on the theme “renewal”. I took a core class last semester called the history and environment of the Middle East, and I was shocked by the fact that this region used to have oasis in ancient times. Thus, we thought it would be interesting to see how this places changed from oasis to desert, and then from desert to such a modernized city with skyscrapers and trees planted along the roads. Our idea was to position our story on an isolated island, which represents the UAE, because recreating the country will be challenging.

Then we thought that it would be too complicated to tell the history of the UAE from the beginning, and we failed to figure out how to make the transitions between the three scenes – oasis, desert, and modern city – natural and intuitive, so we decided to focus on the last two stages: how the UAE developed from desert to a modernized city. After some research, we identified three key stages for economic growth in the UAE, and we listed the elements that should appear in each stage:

Stage #1: desert, tent, barren, camel, cactus, pearl picking

Stage #2: souq, discovery of oil, the combination of seven emirates

Stage #3: Asian cup, skyscraper, NYU, city park, luxury car

In terms of transitions between scenes and the experience of time in our scene, player will be an old man who has lived in the UAE for his entire life. Through the player’s interactions and conversations with people around him in the three stages, player gets a sense of his/her age. For example, in stage #1, the player will see his parents collecting pearls, in stage #2, the player will trade with other people in their mid-age, and in stage #3, the player lives happily with his grandchildren.

However, we still think that the elements we would like to include in our environment and the player are loosely connected: player can actually see the history of UAE from a third person’s view, then why are we designing an VR experience for users to interact with the environment? Following that question, we tried to narrow the scope of the whole story down: instead of telling the story of the whole country, we wanted to focus on what this old man experienced during his life. The experience will start with the player lying in bed in his own luxury bedroom, and we designed three interactions based on the previously mentioned three stages:

Interaction #1 Player approaching the window. When he looks outside the window, he will see the modern city (stage #3)

Interaction #2 Player approaching the wall, touching on the photo hanging on the wall, triggering his midlife memory (stage #2)

Interaction #3 Player approaching a desk, on top of which there’s a hand-made toy. Player picking up the toy, remembering how his mother made him the toy when they lived in tribes (stage #1)

Then we realized another issue with this design: after player enters stage #2 for example, how do they come back to the main scene (the bedroom)? We wanted to avoid using back buttons because we want the experience to be more coherent. Bearing that question in mind, we tried to come up with interactions that could actually push the development of the story, and make the transition between stages more fluent. Then we thought that we could set our environment at the corniche. Player could collect pearls at the beach, and as they collect more pearls, the environment changes: more people gather together, and the souq forms gradually. Then the player can trade with other people, and as more people are trading, the skyscrapers occurs. However, a huge problem with this idea is that the rapid development of the country within the past several decades is due to the discovery of oil, yet we could not come up with a way to assign player a role in the discovery of oil.

At this point, Vivian and I felt like we were trapped by the huge idea of presenting the history of the UAE, and we realized that this is an impossible task considering the number of factors involved in the story. We decided to start over and look at the other two themes.

I had another idea of simulating how people feel after taking hallucinogen, the effects of which has been at the center of debate for decades. Meanwhile, Vivian found this interesting projects, which is a 3D data visualization of the brain activities for 4 seconds of someone who fell in love. We thought it would be interesting to create a multi-sensory experience for love and betray. We decided to name our project Betray, which will be a musical bittersweet love story conveyed by beats, background music and key words that follow the story development timeline.

Our environment will be quite illusionary. We will create an endless world, as if players are floating in the universe, but we will also distort the color of the background, so that the environment looks unfamiliar. There will be a list of words associated with love & betray (maybe also trust?), which appears in order. There will also be a background music. Players can interact with the words. By clicking the trigger/throwing the word away/etc., player can trigger different sound effects and visual effects. There will be a certain level of randomness in the experience, but the certain properties of the effects such as the volume & pitch of the sound effects, and the movement of the visual objects will be decided by how player interact with the word, and the category of the word they interact with. For example, if they interact with a word associated with love, the sound and visual effect will be soft, and calming, while if they interact with a word associated with betray, the sound and visual effect will be harsh and intense.

See Vivian’s blog post for our storyboard.

I made a demo using p5.js for the visual effects of our project. However, after presenting it to the class, I realized that I focused too much on how our project looks but ignored the story behind that. What is the message we try to convey to users by having sound and visual effects? I also shared an alternative I have about creating a virtual version of the Museum of Broken Relationships, where users can play around with objects in the environment, and figure out the story behind each object. Sarah suggested that the storyline should have the top priority if we want this to be an immersive storytelling.

After discussing with Vivian, we came up with the idea of having multiple objects and a cardboard box in the environment. By pairing the objects up and putting them into the box, users can trigger the voiceover of one part of the story. The order in which users put the objects into the box does not matter, since we wanted to leave enough space of imagination and free interpretation of the story to the user. Also, we decided to have a female and a male version of the story, because we believe in gender differences in the understanding and perception of love. Users will be able to choose whether to enter the female or the male version of the story.

Here is our story script:

Male Version：

Movie Ticket & Popcorn Box: I finally got the courage to invite her out for movie. Touched her hand when we tried to reach the popcorn at the same time

Paired Toothbrush & Cup: The first night she slept over, she brought her toothbrush with her. The next morning, she changed my toothbrush into a paired one

Dog Food & Dog Cage: She always wanted a pet dog. I brought home a cute puppy one day, and I couldn’t forget how excited she was: her dream finally came true.

Iron & Suit: First day of work after my promotion. She ironed my suit for me. Looking forward to our future.

Ring & Ring Case: I saved all my money for this ring, prepared for a month for this. Today is finally the day.

Passport & flight ticket: Leaving the country tomorrow. I guess I will have to put this memory in the box and leave it behind…

Female Version:

Movie Ticket & Popcorn Box: He finally asked me to hang out. I’ve been waiting for this for a month. He’s so shy but so cute .

Paired Toothbrush & Cup: I was like a kid after I stayed at his place. I paired our toothbrush up.

Dog Food & Dog Cage: Suddenly one day, he brought home a cute puppy. I was so surprised! I always wanted a pet. I guess now we are a family of three.

Iron & Suit: I want to make his first day after promotion special, so I got up early to iron his suit. Looking forward to the bright future of ours

Ring & Ring Case: I said yes.

Passport & flight ticket: His work left us no choice but to lock all these memories up, forever.

I was a bit worried about not being able to find prefabs for passport, flight ticket, movie ticket, ring, and ring case online, and when we looked into the asset store, we really couldn’t find those. So we changed our storyline a bit, based on what we were able to find online.

New Version:

Male Version：

Paired Toothbrush & Cup: Paired toothbrush is the first step to show we are a family, says her.

Candles & Plates:

I finally got the courage to invite her out for a dinner.

Candle light on her cheeks is the cutest thing ever.

Dog Food & Dog Cage: I brought home a new family member that day, and I couldn’t forget how excited she was: her dream finally came true.

Iron & Iron Board:

First day of work after my promotion.  

She ironed my suit in the morning.  

Looking forward to our bright future.

Pen & Notebook:

She used to keep all of our memories in this notebook …

but it’s meaningless now.

Vast & Watering can:

Roses die. So are our promises….

Eventually it turns out to be a wedding without her…

Female Version:

Paired Toothbrush : Pairing our toothbrush makes us look like a family more…

Dog Food & Dog Cage: That day he brought home a cute puppy. I was so surprised! I always wanted a pet. I guess now we are a family of three.

Iron & Iron Board: I want to make his first day after promotion special, so I got up early to iron his suit. Looking forward to our bright future …

Candles and Plate: Can’t ask for anything better than a candlelight dinner for the first date.

Pen & Notebook: It’s been a while since he left me… i used to keep a diary everyday when we were together …. How stupid i was.

Vast & Watering can: Roses die. So are our promises…. Eventually it turns out to be a wedding without him…

Temporary Title: Detoxification

Setting: Dark room in an old house

Our theme will be like this:

Storyboard:

Explanation of the Storyboard:

1. A potion with poison inside is placed infant of the user (Label -> “Do you want to be successful? Drink this!”)
2. Open a chemical potion and pours it into a cup
3. The user hallucinates (Sees flying furniture, utensils, objects)
4. The user is given a task, a basket, and a time limit (If you don’t find the ingredients of the antidote in 2 minutes, you will not survive!)
5. A list of ingredients to make the antidote
   Examples:
   Flying Cat
   Cellphone/smartphone
   Snail
   Molded rice
   Pen
   
   
6. The user has to scuffle around to find the ingredients of the antidote
7. The user has to put the ingredients into his basket
8. When the user gets all of the ingredients, the user is prompted to go to the big pot
9. The user is prompted to put the ingredients into the big pot
10. The user is prompted to mix the pot
11. The user drinks the antidote successfully -> All the flying furniture utensils, and objects fall down -> real gravity
    • If the user reaches the time limit -> Game Over
    • If the user finds gets the wrong ingredients -> Game Over