Puzzler VR — The Stoned Soul
by Senthamizh
Introduction
The Puzzler VR — The Stoned Soul is a simple VR mobile phone game based on the classic puzzle game “Simon says”. The game is developed for people who are getting introduced to Virtual Reality experience.
In the game, player will be asked to solve the Simon Says puzzle. The game has a story to it in which a soul has been cursed to be inside a stone statue. Player has to solve the puzzle to set it free. The player will be solving the puzzle by repeating a pattern order which will be shown at the beginning of the puzzle.
Design Process
Statement of Purpose:
Puzzler VR is made for the people who are getting started with VR experience. The game is simple and aimed to provide a great VR introductory experience.
Persona
Name: Sandeep Surya
Occupation: Student
Age: 13
Virtual Reality Experience: One time prior experience
About: Sandeep is a student of class 8. He loves mobile games and is getting started to experience Virtual Reality.
Sketches:
Referring from the course materials I made a rough sketch in a random thought. I made a few sketches and finally designed the Puzzler VR scene.
UI Sketches
User Experience
User experience is an important form of feedback.
User Testing Feedback
The below conversation was the feedback I’ve got from him. And the solution I made to fix the issue.
1. How was the experience? What you felt about the environment?
The rooms were very darker. It was very uncomfortable to find what was the environment looked like.
Adjusted Lighting. Increased Range, Intensity of some existing lights and added some more light sources.
2. Did you feel you are short, tall or correct in size comparative to the objects around?
I felt that I would hit the door while entering the building and while moving out of it. The skeleton and the barrels were small too. They were smaller like toys. And the statues were different in sizes but it didn’t affect much as I thought it was a part of the game.
Made adjustments to scale of the objects.
3. What about the texts?
The texts were ok. But the Instructions, Restart UI were not visible to be read except the titles “Instructions” and “Restart” from the point where I was standing.
Increased the size of the texts and also moved the player transported point closer to the UI.
Breakdown of the final piece
Start
The game starts in a lonely mysterious abandoned temple. When the game is launched the player is shown the instructions and is asked to turn around which lets the player (especially if a first-time user) understand how it works. Turning around the Start UI is displayed to start the game.
Play
On clicking the start button, the user is then moved to the play area inside the Dungeon. Then the puzzle starts displaying the pattern along with sounds And then the user is made to solve the puzzle by repeating the pattern displayed. On solving the puzzle, the soul confined inside the statue is released. And once the user visually testifies the soul being released the user is moved to the exit point.
Restart
Reaching the exit point the user is provided an option to restart the game.
Conclusion
This project was a great exercise for me. I’ve learned many things and the errors which I’ve got and mistakes while developing this project helped me a lot to learn and understand better about code, design and how important user feedback is as it shapes the project into a more better likable version.
Next steps
*Planned to make different environments from which the user can select.
Developing the story for the puzzles into many parts according to the environments.
