A puzzle project

This is how I approached the puzzle project assignment.

Create a “Simon Say’s” puzzle type game with a specific target group in mind. There should be an entrance, a puzzle experience and an exit.

Every VR application should be based on active decisions about the usage, purpose and who the end user is. To start with I formulated a persona profile together with a statement of purpose to guide the design.

Before jumping into any scripting and scene modeling the best place to start is with quick low-fi sketches to flesh out the idea. I really wanted to create a scenic and dramatic view that would lean towards a fairytale style environment. After some initial sketches, I had a roadmap for the game scene and the graphical UI elements in the game.

Setting up the environment I used non-curved Wall Prefabs (elements in the game engine) to create a round room as the center stage. Afterwards, I had to use a tube in the roof to cover overlaps. I wanted a balcony on one side of the room to give the user a sense of scale and location. I rendered a reflection map from a sphere in Cinema4d to create the cubemap. Then it was all about testing — adjusting — testing again and so on.

Sometimes users can express something is wrong — but they can pinpoint what exactly is wrong. I used a set-up where I mirrored the phone screen to a second screen which makes testing a lot more fun. My test user was asked about:

For example the user response to scale was that it was fairly ok — but I knew that it could be improved because I forgot one thing: The target group is not as high as myself. She also wanted more colors because it felt ‘boring’.

Back to the “workbench”,

The game could be played with both audio and visual feedback and feed forwards. (helping the user to anticipate an interaction outcome.)

It was fun to see how simple changes can have a huge impact on the experience. If I have had more time I would make more details on the outside experience. If the game had not be fleshed out in the beginning — I might never have gotten past decoration :-)

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