This student group project was completed as part of the Atelier course at OCAD. My team consisted of Mahnoor Shahid, Chris Philippi, Chloe Lindsay, and myself. I acted as a 3D asset designer, a 3D video and audio editor, screenwriter and director.
"Design and build a virtual reality experience using Unity and incorporate 360 video".
How might we design a 3D space that resembles a dollhouse, so that players immediately understand where they are located upon being trapped?
Get Out of the Dollhouse is a virtual reality gameplay that follows a fluid storyline, a cartoon-like CG aesthetic, and spatial audio to create an immersive experience between 360 video and 3D virtual reality space.
You find yourself trapped inside of your daughter’s dollhouse after failing to provide her with enough attention when she asked you to play with her. Now, you are in need of getting your child’s attention to escape. You find ways to make loud noises and sounds inside the cramped space by interacting with toys around you. However, you soon discover the only way you can leave is by simply unlocking the front door with the correct key.The moral of the story is to appreciate the time a parent has with their child. The experience inside the dollhouse is meant to bring curiosity and excitement, as the player enthusiastically interacts with the world around them and watches the rest of the story unfold outside.
With the idea of designing a dollhouse, our team wanted to research features that would allow us to achieve an incredibly realistic aesthetic. We wanted it to be evident that you were trapped inside of a dollhouse and not simply an animated house. During our research, we learned that many dollhouses have:
Outlining the plot is necessary to deliver this most accurate game and story-telling experience.
As a quick tutorial for players, we added three images on one of the walls that demonstrate controller instructions
UI is a little more difficult in VR, therefore, we mostly used feedback dialogues that implicitly instruct the player on what to do further. Since switching from HTC Vive to Oculus Quest, we felt it was important to include controller instructions for both VR headsets that were somehow integrated in the game world. Hence, the instructions for the Quest were displayed in the start screen and the inscriptions for the Vive were on the walls of the dollhouse.
Screenshot images of the interior dollhouse build in Unity, along with assets, designed with the desired aesthetic.
The final prototype was created using Unity.
***Note: due to COVID and lockdown procedures, our team had to step in as actors to the complete project.
Overall, we are extremely proud with the outcome of our project given the circumstances of Covid. I believe that we achieved the exact aesthetic that we set out to create. Reflecting on the project there are a few points that I would like to touch on...
At the beginning of this project, we were concerned about the actual size of the dollhouse space, in terms of the experience walking through in VR. We actually believe that it complemented the experience well, as dollhouses tend to be condensed when closed up and rooms are never spacious in general.
In the middle of our project, the world shut down, and not only did we no longer have access to the best computers for rendering, but we didn't have physical access to each other. Our team immediately had to work from home, unaware of what was even happening academically. Our roles began to blur a bit more, and we executed more of a "all hands on deck" approach to complete the project. I never intended to work with the 360 video; however, upon lockdown, I had the camera, so naturally it became my task.
A major challenge working with VR, is to limit potential motion sickness for a user. As our first time working with the VR and Unity, we are pretty proud of how it turned out but would ultimately like to explore further steps that we can take as designers to limit shaking and excessive movement.