A continuation of last week, this week was all about prototyping and building. We wanted to list out some of the things we could build this week, so on the tech side, we constructed a working prototype of…
- A Twitch interface for accepting messages from a chatroom and integrating with Unity.
- A Twitter interface for parsing messages and integrating with Unity.
- A system of displaying text in three-dimensions in VR.
After discussing the pros and cons of using Twitch or Twitter, we decided to go with Twitch. Twitter was better because it’s an actual social media platform, but because it is a public platform, we were worried it would reduce people’s willingness to engage in a game, particularly considering some people use their Twitters professionally. Although we didn’t have our design yet, we knew that these technical systems would be important.
On the narrative side, our story / design team discussed three separate potential directions for the design which they pitched to the team.
- A player in VR plans for a birthday party while receiving overwhelming messages of support, only to have no one come to the party in the end.
- A player in VR trapped in a desert tries to communicate with the outside world through a radio for help, but in the end they discover every person on Earth is isolated in their own desert.
- A player in VR travels through a world constructed out of media only seeking a friend, and when they find the friend, the friend is actually the player himself.
While the team did not like any idea in its current state, the third idea was selected as a base for future iteration because it took most advantage of the VR platform. Being the least rooted in reality and the most immersed in the social media, we thought this world would provide a lot of room for us to have artistic license.
We finished the week by listing out some more technical toys to build as well as story prototypes to work on over the next week. Two of our team members, Emily and Brad, are headed to San Francisco for the Games For Change conference where they plan on attending talks on VR and crowd-gaming.
