Group
For this collaboration project, Jason and I were paired to work alongside Sound Art students. The goal is to create a VR experience that is at least, 10 minutes long, and focuses on the user’s interaction and the sound feedback. Therefore, it should be a balanced experience where both the VR interaction and the sound experience shine.
Our group is composed of 7 people:
- Jason Cui (BA Virtual Reality)
- Margarida Belo (BA Virtual Reality)
- Hanrui Zhang (BA Sound Arts)
- Si ting Wang (BA Sound Arts)
- Ties Linssen(BA Sound Arts)
- Harvey Young (BA Sound Arts)
- Bohang Zhang (BA Sound Arts)
First Ideas
After the first collaborative sessions, my group and I met up to brainstorm some ideas to start thinking about how we will manage the project regarding spring break, online/in-person meetings, sharing platforms, communication platforms, etc.
First of all, we were immediately drawn to the idea of a horror experience. When it comes to terrifying experiences, such as scary games/movies, the sound is one of the most if not the most relevant factors throughout the entire product. So we thought this would be a brilliant way to create a balance between the visual components and the audio ones.
There was also this ongoing idea of making users doubt themselves throughout the entire experience. Like we want them to go slightly crazy by giving them jumpscares and playing with their perceptions of the narrative and how it’s all connected.
In terms of aesthetics, we’re still not quite sure how to go about it. One person suggested a futuristic theme. Others were leaning more towards a “classical” modern horror experience. Honestly, I prefer the latter because I feel that the focus should be on the phobias themselves and not on the fact that it happens in space or something like that. We’ll figure something out.
In the end, we unanimously agreed that our VR Artefact would be a game. All the ideas and suggestions pretty much lead us to conclude that what we were describing, would involve the player’s agility and interaction in order to finish the entire experience and face their fears by solving each level.
Update – developing our concept
We have been developing the idea further and decided to create something to do with phobias. We thought it would be interesting to get people’s reactions and make them face their worst fears by overwhelming them with a highly sensory experience. We did some research on the most common phobias and took note of the ones we reckoned were most universal/impactful.
And there was also this really funny idea of having a dog playing Jazz music throughout the experience and having it guide the player/playing with their emotions, and ultimately just be a normal dog once the challenges/main experience is over.
Even though I think it’s premature to start discussing this, we talked about having the ending be a giant version of the house where the player is spawned at the begging of the game and is stepped on by a giant Jazz Dog and then the game is over. Personally, I think this shouldn’t be set in stone, since the levels should be the main focus and will require a lot more work. So I wouldn’t want us to spend too much time working on unnecessary plots. But the idea sounds pretty fun, I’ll give them that.
Jason and I pretty much had to refuse some of their ideas straight away. There was the idea of a mirror maze with a delay to the player’s reflection and then stuff would show up but not in the mirrors… There was also an idea with rising water and then having to dive and the dog would be swimming there and guiding the player. Just confusing and too complicated for VR. Besides, we also warned them about motion sickness and the fact that this is not a regular “2D” computer game. We have limitations in terms of knowledge, skill and most importantly the platform on which the game will be played.
Just writing about it makes me anxious. However, I think it was good that we were able to establish our limits and what we thought would be feasible, while also still pleasing our group and compromising on other factors. I think because they don’t know what creating a game implies, they just started to throw ideas in hopes we would just do it. But we explained everything thoroughly and made sure everyone was clarified and happy with our suggestions.
Update 2 – Final Phobias and other ideas
We ended up selecting three phobias for our final game. Those would be Acrophobia (fear of heights), Coulrophobia (fear of clowns) and Claustrophobia (fear of tight spaces). We figured these were relatable enough and would give us more options to interpret fear and how to go about scaring the player, without using jumpscares all the time.
We don’t have a logic for each level yet, but we have a pretty clear idea of how we want the game to flow/how the levels will be connected.
Final Idea and Storyboard
For our final idea, we just polished it a bit and ended up going with the phobias idea. We also created a very rough game flow idea, as in which levels would go first and how the player would transition from one level to the other. the order we ended up going with was Acrophobia, Coulrophobia and Claustrophobia. The reason is that we want the player to get a fake sense of familiarity and security due to the bright somewhat relatable skyscraper scene, and from then it gets worse. Also, the clown scene goes in a second so that we can later add a surprise jumpscare when the player has already forgotten about this scene. So, that leaves the hallway scene for last. We are still deciding how the transition from level three to the credits scene is going to play out but for now, this should be solid enough of an idea.
We presented this in class and the feedback was very helpful. We even got some suggestions for movies to use as inspiration.
Also, we officially removed the idea of the dog because it was going to take too much time to create something that wasn’t essential/the focus of the experience. Instead, when the player finishes the game, they will watch the credit (maybe scare them one more time… hehe heh) and then they go back to the main menu and the entire game starts over.
We started to refine our idea by making sure the genre was clear and the concept/game logic was easy to understand by the audience. We also distributed tasks amongst each other equally and made sure everyone had something to work on. I will post a link below to our PowerPoint presentation that demonstrates this a bit further.
Levels + other rooms
Normal/weird rooms
For the first two rooms and the credits, we used a model we found on sketchfab. The only thing that changed throughout the game is the lighting and the interaction the player can have within the room. Meaning its purpose is to be a transitional scene.
Normal and Weird room. These are the first two scenes introduced to the player. They mark the transition between normal and nightmare. Reality vs abnormality. Once the player walks out of the Weird room, the game starts.
The goal is to create a fake sense of security and trust in the normal room, which is immediately shattered once the player drinks the water. The weird room is the first scare the player faces in the game. But it is just the begging…
Level 1 – Skyscraper Scene
For level 1, we had to come up with ways the player would interact with a parkour scenario. There is walking and climbing. Unfortunately jumping wasn’t a viable option. But to achieve this, we decide to create a city scene where the player needs to walk and climb their way through an obstacle course to get to the end. While doing this they must face the sight and constant pressure that comes with not falling to their “deaths”.
These are the elements we included in this level, by order:
- Glass as a way to make the player look down;
- Climbing the ladder as a physical challenge
- Riding the crane was a bit of a jumpscare,
- Crossing the parkour platforms as a coordination challenge;
- Crossing the unstable wooden planks (and then falling hehe);
The ideas and layout changed throughout the process of building the level, so we ended up with something closer to the first sketch below. But to summarise, the player must go through the aforementioned trail of obstacles to get to the final door and move on to the next level (clown scene).
Level 2 – Clown Scene
For level 2, it took a while to design a good plot. But in the end, we chose to do an abandoned park where the player is followed/terrorised by clowns that keep showing up announcing and terrorising them in various ways. Since it was an open scene and there was more visibility, we had to come up with diverse interactions to keep the player engaged (scared) throughout the experience. Furthermore, the visuals and interactions were also a bit tough to imagine due to this scene taking place in such a huge environment. But in the end, we were able to think of quite a few obstacles to include in this level.
Firstly, as the player walks, they encounter a clown sitting on the bench, after walking a bit more forward, the clown says “bye-bye” and disappears. Then, the player will encounter a crazy-looking clown crawling across the path (jumpscare). Then the carrousel will be triggered and its animation will go faster and a clown will pop up there, laughing. Afterwards, the player sees a lamp glitching for a second and as this happens, a clown appears and disappears. Finally, before the last stage, the users will see a creepy swing with a doll singing and murmuring.
At the end of the path, after all the interactions I mentioned there will be three final doors, where the player has to pick the correct one to move on to the final level. There will be no clues (hehe). I will not explain all the options because they are literally written in the second image below.
Sorry that summary was probably as easy to understand as the drawing below but it is a very concise description of everything that happens on this level, by order (which actually changed as proved below).
Note: Initially someone from our group suggested we do the entire scene in a circus tent, but we felt like it was a bit restrictive. Furthermore, we like the idea of the player being in an open space and exposed to a huge environment because it makes them feel more vulnerable to any threats.
Level 3 – Hallway Scene
Finally, for level 3 the idea was to have a long corridor with the walls closing in on the player to really simulate that claustrophobic feeling. We had to think of an escape room type of logic to challenge the player’s ability to solve this level while being slowly antagonised by the time constraint.
In order to get out, the player needs to first find the correct door by analysing the map and finding the symbol corresponding to the correct door. Then, by paying close attention to the sound, they must choose the correct cards and place them on the scanners next to the correct door. And finally, they must get the key to open the door. While all of this is happening, the walls are shrinking and the player has 3 minutes to complete the level before they are squished to death, and the level restarts.
After they finish this, they will find a room with a bottle of water, just like in the beginning, which they must drink to go to the credits scene.
Regarding the sound, the clue to the cards will be in the number of beats the player can hear.
Game Flow Diagram
In the end, we ended up with 8 scenes. After a couple of changes to the plot and suggestions from tutors, we decided to add an extra clown scene just to add some mystery and confusion. It won’t be anything fancy since it’s not the main level, but just something to further take the player into a state of despair.
The flow of the game is pretty linear and straightforward. The player has to finish a level to go to the other in order to finish the game. However, there is one exception that changes this a bit. The pop-up menu will allow the player to go from one level to another by simply selecting it. So the only mandatory level is really just the last. Ideally, we want the players to go through each level, but for presentation/ experience purposes, Jason and I decided to have this option so users can swiftly go from one level to another and take a look around.
Also, I guess we realised this at some point but the goal of this game slightly shifted from getting people to overcome their phobias to instead traumatising them as much as possible, which in my opinion, is a whole lot more fun!
Inspiration
In terms of inspiration, there were 3 games that inspired our ideas and 1 movie.
Firstly, the obvious choice to go with when it comes to clowns, we took inspiration from the movie “It”. Having watched the entire sequel I was immediately drawn to that creepy atmosphere where a clown is going after you but not only acts scary but also has the ability to make everything around you silly, but in an extremely creepy and unsettling way.
Therefore, conceptually and plot-wise, it was a crucial reference when it came to depicting scary clowns and creating successful jumpscares.
On the other hand, we used the VR game “Richie’s plank experience” as a pivot to our skyscraper/acrophobia level. The goal was to capture that same exact feeling of walking and desperately making sure not to look down. As a result, this game was not only conceptually necessary but also a big visual inspiration for our first stage.
Planks, fog, skyscrapers, immersive sound. All of these elements were essential to create something similar to this game. The only difference is that in Richies Plank’s experience, the user has to actually walk in real life, which results in more immersion and a heightened sense of fear. The fact that we will be using joysticks to move the first-person controller, means that will get lost. It is still possible to do. We would just need a huge field for the users to experience our game properly.
Then, we used the game FNAF (five Nights at Freddy’s) as inspiration for the gameplay and aesthetics.
Fnaf is a game made up of rooms(stages) where things start to show up as the player progresses. This was a good reference for the jumpscares in the clown scene, where things aren’t there but suddenly appear.
Additionally, the bright and dim lighting was an excellent visual reference for the clown and hallway scenes, where we really wanted to create that same contrast in order to place the player’s focus on the clowns or any frightening elements.
Finally, we took inspiration from the game Slenderman visually and gameplay-wise. The lack of light and the feeling of disorientation were very interesting approaches that we could play around with. Again, this was a major inspiration for the clown scene and not only in terms of lighting.
Even though we ended up not doing it, it would have been interesting to have the player hold a lantern while they are walking and have them get that same lost feeling.
Communication and Group Dynamic
Throughout the entire project, we kept in contact with each other and made sure everyone knew what was going on or what tasks they’d be responsible for. There were weekly meetings to keep everyone updated and talk about tasks and goals.
To do this, we used 3 major platforms to communicate and share our progress. Those were whatsapp, onedrive and Teams. We also occasionally used Miro, but mostly in the beginning to create a calendar and brainstorm ideas.
When using onedrive, we kept two major folders. One for sound and one for assets and anything related to game development. Each group (sound/VR) would be responsible for sharing files, and keeping their folder up to date and organised.
Miro link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPj9j6L4=/?share_link_id=589266218938
Initial role distribution between Jason and I
| Scene | Layout | Coding |
| – Main Menu | Jason | Jason |
| – Normal Room | Margarida and Jason | Margarida |
| – Weird Room | Margarida | Margarida |
| – Skyscraper Scene | Margarida | Margarida |
| – Clown Scene (night) | Jason | Jason |
| – Hallway Scene | Margarida | Margarida |
| – Credits Scene | Jason | Jason |
| Update: Clown Scene (day) | Jason | Jason |
Why VR?
For our last game project, we had to briefly justify the use of VR in our games. I think it is equally relevant to do it now as well since we could’ve simply created a computer horror game instead. So what makes VR necessary in this project then?
Our goal here is to create an immersive experience by taking “2D” horror games to the next level. A simple computer game lacks real-life interactivity, the feeling of presence and physical sensation/movement. In order to get closer to simulating these, virtual reality becomes an essential component. By doing this, we get closer to real life and therefore, real fear, which is the main goal of all horror games.