Summer Research : Virtual Reality Game Design (Jul 2016)

Objective:

The collective goal of our 5-person team was to create a Virtual Reality ( VR ) game in which the player makes meaningful choices that impact the outcome of the game. In order to study how user-directed paths would affect a game's outcome, we needed a game that was easy for all ages to play, interesting enough without being too challenging to program ( since this was new to all of us ), but also fun enough to play multiple times.

I directed a team of three to come up with multiple game ideas and mini-games that would appeal to a broad range of users. We worked under Professor Bares, who runs the Virtual Productions Lab at the College of Charleston.

Using the Unity Game Development platform and asset store, we designed a VR Game where the player is a misbehaving kid in a Kindergarten classroom setting. The player can antagonize the atmosphere in the class or choose to go about their tasks in a well-behaved manner. Their actions are meaningful as each naughty or nice action performed either detracts or adds points to the meter displayed on the screen. The chaos level in the classroom rises and falls with the player's actions to reflect the impact of their choices during game play.

Research Poster:

This is the research poster that was presented by Ron Taylor at the 2016 Science and Mathematics Poster Session. I contributed mostly to the "Abstract", "Design of Classroom Comedy", "Areas of the Virtual Classroom", and the "Branching Story Tree of Possible Narrative Paths" sections. My main overall contribution to this research was the design process while Ron was responsible for the scripting.

Naughty / Nice Gauge:

This was our gauge that is displayed on the screen at all times so the viewer can know how their behavior is affecting the overall tone of the game.

Story Path Decision Tree:

This is a detailed tree of the decisions possible within the game and an in-depth description of how the possible paths will be offered to the player. I was responsible for coming up with the dialog outline and the consequences of naughty/nice results during game play. This diagram was created to nicely display possible outcomes for the game.