Virtual Reality – the empty string

Introduction

My most recent VR project is a simple Simon-esque game in which the player must select floating orbs in the correct sequence in order to pass through a dungeon. This was the fourth project for Udacity’s VR Developer Nanodegree. I enjoyed this project a lot because there was more emphasis on designing a good user experience. I got to put my UX skills to use to create personas, draw sketches, conduct user tests, and iterate on the design.

Process

Personas

One of the first things I did was create three personas of different users who might be interested in this game. I already wrote about this in a previous post, where you can also download the persona template that I designed. You can click the images below to see them bigger.

Sketches

I made several sketches throughout the process. I haven’t make all of the sketches a reality yet, but I have a clear idea of what I want the final experience to be like. I added several bits of backstory to the game to make the player more invested in completing the puzzle.

Working in Unity

I created the game in four stages, with user testing and iteration after each stage.

Create the environment (3D models and lighting). Do user testing for mood and scale.
Create the UI for starting and resetting the game. Test for scale, placement, legibility, and clarity.
Add camera motion and program UI buttons. Test for speed and comfort to avoid simulation sickness.
Program game mechanics. Test for playability, understanding of rules, and overall experience.

Building the dungeon environment with premade assets

User Testing and Iteration

Below are videos of my first playtest and my most recent playtest, so you can see the progress made so far.

Some of the things discovered and fixed from playtesting included:

Some people felt too short. Adjusted the camera position and the overall scale of the environment.
The UI was much too close to the camera at first. Repositioned it farther away.
The start UI blocked the view of the dungeon, so it was really disorienting when the camera started moving. I fixed this by making the UI partially transparent.
The camera motion was too fast. Slowed it down to create smoother transition into dungeon.
The positioning of the orbs was too high to be able to comfortably select the top two. Repositioned them to be more in the line of sight.

And these are some things that I haven’t fixed yet:

There is a glitch where the back wall of the dungeon changes color when you look at it.
Some people do not recognize the “Simon-esque” aspect of the game, so they don’t know what to do when the orbs light up.
The negative feedback sound when you select the wrong orb is not clear enough.

Current State

Here is gameplay video of the game in its current state, as of Oct. 1, 2017. For some reason the screen recording software did not capture the ambient environment sounds.

Planned Improvements

Incorporate all the story elements to give players more choices (see sketches above).
Program a lose condition if they select the wrong orb too many times.
Program different levels of difficulty.
Create either clear instructions about how to play or hints if the player gets stuck.
Animate the orbs to move out of the way upon completing the puzzle.
Give each orb a unique pitch and color.
Create background scenery.
Improve UI design.
Improve sound design.

Last month I wrote about how I’m working on Udacity’s Virtual Reality Developer nanodegree. My most recent project is a virtual reality maze that you can navigate to find and collect seven coins and a key.

A hand-drawn sketch of the maze. — *Initial sketch.*

Once you have collected the key, you can unlock the door to the temple, winning the game. The project required the use of C# scripting to track the state of the key and door, and to create the effect of collecting objects (animation, sound, and destroying & creating objects).

A 3D rendered coin. — *A coin. Don’t you just wanna compulsively collect these?*

Stereoscopic view of a 3D rendered pedestal with a key on top of it. — *Spoiler alert: The key is on top of a pedestal behind the temple.*

Udacity provided the starter project files, which included prefab maze walls, temple, coins, key, etc. I had to design the maze and place the walls, coins, and key in the scene to make a playable game. I also wrote scripts to create the interactions in the game, such as the sound effects and animation upon collecting coins, tracking whether or not the key has been collected, and animating the door opening. You can read all the requirements on the project rubric.