Oculus Launch Pad — Week 3 — The Narrative
All great films begin with a great script. This week I began writing the User Journey. “The player puts on the headset.” I know that seems obvious but just writing that sentence is important. It’s the moment for entry into a new world, the world where a brand new story will unfold.
I searched online for some examples of a user journey for a game. I couldn’t find anything. All I could find were journey maps and examples of people walking through a commercial space before they encounter a product. My internet searches seemed futile. So I went back to my first sentence because I might as well begin at the beginning.
Writing a user journey for a game feels so different to me from writing a film. I’m learning that I have to think about every trigger the player will pull and what it will activate, and what that visual detail looks like. It’s using a lot of imagination. My colleague Alyssa has provided creative feedback pushing me deeper into the details. Every icon I haven’t described clearly needs more clarifying. This is really helpful because it shows me how crystal clear I need to be in order to direct my team. I managed to get from scripting the very first moment all the way to the end of the user journey. Next week I’ll revise to make it better.
The other thing that Alyssa reminded me, is that the User Journey *Maps* I kept finding are more useful than I thought. She began one with a man she made up named “Demetri”. Her description of Demetri is as follows: “Demitri is a second generation American who has inherited the family business, a thriving Greek restaurant in Flatbush. His neighbourhood is evolving rapidly, and businesses that he has known since he was a child are closing. He hopes that Cardboard City Futura will give him some tools to understand gentrification and how he can affect the changes occurring in his community.” I can use Alyssa’s visual journey map and think about Demetri playing through it to re-inform the rewrites of the script.
Photogrammetry:
With this game I want to bring physical objects into a digital world. Photogrammetry is the solution for this. I’ve created some cardboard assets using recycled materials. I began using the 123D catch software but I’m not pleased with how the models look. It makes me consider 3D modeling but I’m really dedicated to using the real-world physical creations and translating them as accurately as possible into a digital format. Here’s a sample 3D scan I did with 123D catch. I can tell that this won’t work for models with more detail and I don’t like how it pulls in the background that the model is sitting on. This coming week I’ll need to do more testing or find another solution.
