DEEP SPACE PUZZLE VR
Deep Space Puzzle VR is an immersive Virtual Reality game which is the result of a careful iterative process of user testing and user experience design. It is a fun memory game developed for Google Cardboard compatible devices.
About the game
You’re stuck in an unknown planet in a distant galaxy. The objective of the game is to solve the puzzle so that you can leave the planet for your home. The puzzle is inside a mysterious and haunted dungeon. There are dark and enigmatic sounds coming from the dungeon.
The process
An important thing to do before starting work on a game is to sketch and plan the architecture and game-play beforehand so that you have a clear vision of what your game should look and feel like. Planning is the key.
Here is one of the sketches i made before jumping into the game engine —
User Testing
The next thing to do was create this environment and user test it to know what different people feel about the environment. Record their inputs and think about what they felt and responded to the environment around them.
User-testing on various people through all stages of my game, gave me a perspective on how different people see things differently. I got different comments from different people depending on how much exposure that they had with Virtual Reality.
User Testing 1 -
- The dungeon looks like a normal room with barrels and 5 balls — very underwhelming!
- So, I added more props, lights and effects to the scene to make it look very real.
User Testing 2 -
- I feel much bigger in the dungeon!
- User was referring to the height of the camera. I checked it myself on hearing that, and the camera indeed was a little higher. This error was corrected after this suggestion. This is what user testing does for you. Sometimes you fail to see subtle inconsistencies because you designed the game.
I tried to take all these suggestions and tried to incorporate everyone’s views and suggestions to make a game which an average user would like.
Persona
I gave an identity to this average user. Meet Buzz.
Buzz, 19 — Student
“I love playing games, any kind!!”
Buzz is an undergrad student and he likes to play video games on his X-Box as well as mobile phone. He spends a lot of time on his phone playing Clash Royale and a few other games. He thinks Virtual Reality is awesome and would love to try good VR games.
Experience level with Virtual Reality — Little
Breakdown of the final piece
In the beginning the player is greeted with a welcome message, the player can click on start whenever ready.
On entering the dungeon, the player sees five arcane orbs. They start lighting up randomly and stop after some time. The aim of the player is to remember the order in which the arcane orbs light up.
As soon as you get the order correct, you win the game and are free to go back home. If you’re not done with the planet and want to play more, click restart and it’ll take you back to the starting position.
Conclusion
After working on this game, I have realized that planning your work before you start working on it plays a huge role in how deciding how much time you end up developing any project. It is very efficient if you already have a plan, rather than jumping straight into development. Another important process in developing any application or game is user testing. User testing your product lets you know exactly what the people want and you can make changes accordingly.
This project has given me a lot of insight into the various ways in which one can improve the process of developing Virtual Reality content.
