isgustavo / Puzzler

[VR Developer Nanodegree] The Puzzler is a mobile VR mini game for everyone who likes VR entertainment and miss the old, colorful and cool game called Simon.

Puzzler Documentation by Gustavo F Oliveira

I have made this project for the VR Nanodegree. In this Doc you can see a few part of developments process of “The Puzzler”.

• Introduction
• Outcomes
• Design process
• user testing
• Break down of the final piece
• Conclusion
• Next Steps

Introduction

The Puzzler is a mobile VR mini game for everyone who likes VR entertainment and miss the old, colorful and cool game called Simon.

Outcomes

Game play video

Design Process

I have made a persona to met my target audience

Persona:

M, 43 - Librarian

M lives with his family. She works part time and loves medieval literature. At the moment she is playing a game called Dark Souls. She has never used VR games before because nothing caught her eye.

VR Experience: Beginner

After creating the persona I have made a very basic sketches to game. In fact, not so far from what was proposed by the course.

The idea was to create the most mysterious and dark atmosphere possible. I mean, I need to use light and sound a lot to create a correct mood for this game.

User Testing

Environment Size

At first user test I asked about dimension in the game. The result was that player was to small, almost like a rat. lol After, I have made other test to fix this size issues.

Game Atmosphere

Every time I asked about the atmosphere, the resposta was something like “I'm on Castle” or “I'm on dark place”.

UI Panels

For all tests the position of buttons and size of test was Ok.

Interaction

The complete game experience in the first time was a bit uncomfortable, I discovered the transporting speed was a bit fast for the testers.

Break down of the final piece

The game starts in front of a medieval building, where the player can see an UI Panel with instructions. After clicking on the start button, the player is transported inside the building.

There, the player can see five orbs which light up in a different sequence and the player need repeat the sequence to win the game. Like a Simon game.

When the player solves the puzzle he is transported out of building, where can see a congrats UI Panel. The Player can start again from here.

Conclusion

This VR nanodegree chapter was great. I learned a lot about motion sickness and how avoid this, how to move the player across the scene better using a transporting or waypoints system, use the sound to modify completely the scene mood and something who I already knew but it's always good to see in practice: A good User test can fix problems before that turn a huge problems.

Next Step

• Get more medieval assets and build more and more levels like the 12 palaces from Saint Seiya manga.