Luis Chavez VR Sci Fi Puzzler Project

Luis Chavez
Sep 8, 2018 · 5 min read

Puzzler is a project part of the Vr Developer Nanodegree at Udacity, which is to develop a VR game for mobile devices based on a puzzle with Unity. To learn how to do a write-up and the process of a game.

This project is done in 3 days counting this article. It was a challenge, by making a good experience for the user, making that all the movements are nice and smooth so the player doesn’t feel sickness.

VR Sci Fi Puzzler

This project is about a puzzle based on a Sci Fi environment where the player starts and moves slowly towards the room where the puzzle is. The player has to memorize the sequence of the batteries that were turned on and repeat it by clicking on the batteries in the correct order, if it is correct it can start again.

How it was made

I wanted to do something different, so I opted not to use any of the material supplied by Udacity, I finded some nice assets at the unity asset store that where perfect for my project, so I put them all together, add and change some parts of the code to make it look and work as I expected.

The player click a button that starts the experience, moving to points placed in parts of the environment, using iTween plugin for a smooth movement. The batteries light up on a different sequence each time, changing the material color and checking if the player clicks the correct batteries that light up, if so it can press the restart button

Targeted audience

This game is made for people that are looking for a simple and nice VR play experience, introduces him to how a game can look in VR,easy to understand, with visual and audio effects so the player gets good immersive experience.

Persona

For this project I thinked on a friend called Ivan. Ivan is 23 years old who likes playing mobile games but never played a VR game. He works all day but when he gets home he likes to get distracted from the real world. He says that mobile games are the best because you can play them anywhere.

Sketches

Here are some sketches I made to have an idea on how I’m going to make the game look.

User Testing

I did some user testing with my family and some friends. The tests were good, I had to change some things that bothered them or disliked them a bit, but at the end they liked the result very much

User Testing

User Test 1:

I tested how they feel in the enviroment if its too big or to small, and the result was to good every one feeled really well, so I did not need to change anything.

User Test 2:

I tested if they liked how the user interface elements felt and looked, almost all said the user interface was flat and simple. So I changed everything, I found a computer prefab that was perfect because I wanted it so in my sketches, at the end they liked it a lot.

User Test 3:

I Tested how they feel with the movement if it is to fast or to slow,everyone told me it was fast and it feels strange. So I slowed down all the movements and they felt it better.

User Test 4:

I Tested if the puzzle was understandable and how they feel playing it. They think that the color doesn’t distinguish a lot when is light up or not. So I put a color that looks much better.

Final Results

Start and Restart

From the start, I wanted that the UI looks like computers, they don’t look much butt they look nice.

Movement

El movimiento es agradable, los usuarios se sienten cómodos y no se sienten mareados

Puzzle

I used some batteries that were perfect for the puzzle and fits with the theme of the sci fi environment.

Final

When playing the game the user experiences being in a new world where there is almost no light, he travels around the place slowly feeling a bit of fear, and at the end he finds a puzzle of batteries, which he has to solve to restart.

Conclusion

Showing the final result to different people was really the best part, everyone likes it, there’s were all difficulties and challenges I passed are totally worth it. Even making this story was a challenge because English is not my main language, so I had never written in English, there is always a first time and let’s go for more.

Next Steps

Next I would like to add more puzzles, the sci fi environment that I used has more rooms that I can use to put more puzzles, each puzzle could be more challenging. The player moves to all the the rooms that the environment has facing different challenges.

Links

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