I have spent the past week working on a first draft script of the experience based on the narrative that i had previously thought of. I wanted the dialogue from the ear piece to fully guide and tell the player what to do as they progress through the experience including where to go, what to do next and how to interact with the other player in the alternate dimension depending on the task that they need to complete
Changing the Gravity for Player 2 in Unity
One aspect of my experience will involve an area where the players are mirrored below one another so this means that while one player will be walking normally, the other player will technically need to be upside down. This means that this particular XR rig for player two needs to have its gravity changed which with the help of my teacher i was able to do with this line of code so that the player can essentially stick to the under side of the floor while technically being upside down.
Mirroring Objects in Unity
Another element that i want to do for some of the puzzles also involves some objects interacting and moving together in both ‘dimensions’ and so again with the help of my teacher we developed some code which meant that if one object was picked up, it would reflect the X-Axis of that objects to move in the other environment as well and so the different axis can be selected depending on where the reflection is in the experience.
One problem that we found however was how that one object needed to be the main one and grabbing the sub object wouldnt work unless one script was turned off and then the other was turned on. On the other hand this could be used in the narrative so that perhaps the second object is faded in the other environment to show that it has slipped between dimensions and the alternate person cant interact with that object? could be interesting for the users.
Storyboarding The Puzzles
I decided that it would be helpful to do some sketches or drawings of the puzzles and interactions that the players will be completing in the experience so i decided to do some storyboard like sketches to show this process as you can see from the images below.
Over the past week i have started to develop a story script of the narrative that i could tell in this experience. To keep the experience fairly simple i did not want to include any NPC characters and i rather wanted to have voice characters that will guide the player through the experience because the NPC will essentially be the other player.
I thought it would be interesting if the narrative involved an arean that has been locked off or changed so that an agent or operative will need to be sent through to find the cause of this area being torn between the multiverse or dimensions. While in this area the other player will be in the reflections also trying to find the cause of the multiverse but in the opposite dimensions which would mean that these two worlds are parallel and following a similar narrative but of course will have visual or aehsthetic differences. One element i thought could be interesting is the idea of having a male voice in player ones ear and then a female voice in player twos ear but they are reading the same dialogue which will make it interesting for replayability.
I still want to stick to the hotel idea with different areas that the players can navigate through such as the hotel lobby, elevators, rooms, hallways, outside alleys, car parks and a multitude of different options the players could explore which also allow for different options of interactivity or puzzles to complete.
Interactivity in the Environment
Further Unity Tests (Showing the Concept)
To further show my concept, ideas and thinking to my teachers i created some examples of how the players will see eachother using a character model in unity and creating the mirrored hallways, stairs, mirrors and all other assets etc. to show how the unity build will work together as you can see from the images below.
Developments to The Environment Map
After creating my initial sketches or ideas for the map layout i bagan to rethink it a bit further and develop where the players could be at any given time and how the story can be narrowed down a bit further. As you can see from the image below i have now created quite a large starting area which will act as a tutorial of sorts for the players to get used the environments and gameplay mechanics of the experience.
The blue tiles are where i plan to make reflections in the environment such as those on the left and right and also above and below. This layout i have also began to think specifically about the different break points and areas in which the players will see eachother and of course for my concept to work i will also need to teleport player two around the player one map which also needs to be taken into consideration as well.
After realising some initial ideas for my final major project and thesis I started to further think and develop my idea and how i could progress further with my project.
Initial unity Test Concepts
One idea that i was playing around with is how the player can see the other player through reflections in the environment and how this can be achieved through Unity.
I decided to create a demo hallway of how this practice could be achieved and one inspiration that I got for this concept was through a previous project shown to my by my teacher Herman. His game involved a never ending corridor that changed as you moved around it but his method of doing this involved having multiple rigs set up around duplicates of the same environment which would move the player seamlessly between them as they crossed certain paths or areas.
So i started to think about how this could be done in for my multiverse reflection idea to have the player two move around player one without them noticing. So i made one corridor and then made multiple duplicate corridors around this area with multiple XR rigs that could be turned on and off as the player walks through colliders which will hopefully seamlessly move them around these corridors creating the illusion of the reflections in the world.
I did look into how you could use camera in the game to simulate the reflection but the results weren’t promising resulting in warping or the perspective just not working very well rather than just actually seeing the player around you.
Ideas for the narrative and Story
I began to think of a general narrative for my experience which ended up involving the multiverse and the player being able to communicate, see and interact with their otherworld counterpart which will be player one and player two. The narrative will involve the multiverse falling apart in one single area and this area the player will see one another through reflections within the world.
The area in which the world is falling apart is a hotel and so this allows me to create one sort of area or corridor that the player can progress through and some puzzles or tasks can be created around this area allowing the players to move through the hotel environment. I started to think about what kind of tasks the player could complete and also how the hotel could be used in these tasks:
Puzzle 01 (Mirror Room): Visual puzzle through reflections where users have to interact and see objects at the same time through visuals only
Puzzle 02 (Raining Alley): visual puzzle through up and down reflection to find objects underneath reflected objects in the sapce
Puzzle 03 (The Elevator): This set piece could involve one reflection being able to see the buttons while the other needs to interact with them or move certain things out of the way (Elevator Button)
Puzzle 04 (The Hallway): Sound based puzzle where players talk and communicate
Each of these tasks or puzzles can involve ways in which the players can utilise maybe hearing one another, seeing one another or one only being able to do a certain thing that the other cant. These ideas will continue to be developed further.
Drawing out the map designs and world layout
After deciding some of the initial story ideas of setting the game in a hotel environment, I started to draw or sketch out some ideas of how this world layout could look and how the mirror reflections could be utilised in this environment.
As you can see from my initial sketches below I have essentially drawn out a long corridor that both of the players can progress through together to complete some tasks to eventually reach the end of the experience and complete the game together. The Red markers on the map are doors that the player will not be able to go through and the blue markers are doors or entrances that the player will be able to open and progress through further.
The purple markers are the more tricky elements which show how the players will see one another in the environment such as seeing each other on the reflections in the walls on their left and right. However i have also thought about how this can be enhanced further and the players could see each other above and below themselves as well as you can see from the larger purple elements in the map.
For my final major project and thesis I want to create a project that is inspired by the work of Hazelight studios who create video games that you have to play in Co-op with another player that you know and i want to take this concept into virtual reality and create an experience with this in mind. For the narrative I have also got a strong interest in multiversal media and the stories that could be told in many different ways including Virtual reality.
Multiversal Media
One element I want to explore in a virtual reality experience is the concept of the ‘Multiverse’ and how you can present and play with these ideas. Some media which explores these concepts are ‘Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness’, ‘Steins gate’, ‘Tatami Galaxy’, ‘Inception’, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’, ‘ Looper’, ‘ Spiderman Into The Spider-Verse’ and its sequels.
Cooperative Experience
I want my Final major project to focus on a narrative driven Co-Operative experience that has to be played in multiplayer in Virtual Reality. Some experience that can be taken as reference for this are ‘A Way Out’, ‘It Takes Two’, ‘We Were Here Trilogy’, ‘Portal 2’ and ‘Phasmophobia.
Thesis Research Topic
How multidimensional spaces are being presented through media and virtual reality
Experience Concept
The experience can only be played through cooperative online or local with two players using virtual reality headsets. Each worlds or dimension can have different visual styles and can affect the others dimensional worlds. Different areas can be explored such as how the players communicate either verbally, visually or through interaction etc.
Dream space | Dream Theory | Limitless Space | Impossible Space | Multi-layered | Earth in a World | Endless | Sand | Time
Initial Ideas and Concepts
For my initial ideas i started to write down all of my notes on the whiteboard as i usually do for all of my projects which you can see from some of the images below.
Art Style
For the art style of my project I started to think about unique ways that you could differentiate the two dimensions or worlds from one another which included making both worlds black and white and using some selected colours to make them look different. Another idea was to extend this further by using a form of cell shading which would allow one environment to be black with white outlines and another environment to be white with black outlines.
Some more inspiration I looked into when considering these art styles were paper man, Epic Mickey, Mad world, Trek to Yomi and also for further ideas on changing the world and changing the colours, I looked into De Blob.
Environments
When creating two different environments that need to differentiate from one another in separate dimensions, there are many different ways you can go about this from minor changes to completely different scenery. Some examples of this are games such as ‘The Medium’ in which the character walks through the real world but can also change her mind to her counterpart showing a world rotting away and almost shown as a hell scape. There is also a game called Plasticity which has a very similar concept showing one world clean and in daylight while the other world is dark and grown over or destroyed/taken over by nature of the world.
Narrative Ideas
One element that i need to realise is how the narrative can be explored in this experience such as the idea of the two players being Yin and Yang or night and say which then represent two opposities to one another perhaps trying to bring balance to the world they are in.
Mirror Reflections
One element that I think could work well for a split dimension story, is utilising the reflections or mirrors that could be seen in the environment. There is a range of media which uses this well such as Edgar Wrights ‘Last Night in Soho’ where the two main character are shown through the reflections portraying the same movements and expressions so show they are sharing one mind. This is also shown in Disney’s ‘Sorcerers Apprentice’ where using the characters magic they created a ‘mirror world’ which traps the character that looks visually similar but they are the only inhabitant.
The idea of a mirrored world or alternate world is also shown in Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ which portrays a realm called the ‘Upside Down’ which is a dark, post apocalyptic environment of the real world within the story.
