Gameplay Preview

This game really speaks for itself - it's a gorgeous VR demo! Here's a full playthrough video of one of our testers. Click to play!

Overview

This was a group project I developed at university (QUT). The design was developed over 5 weeks with research and feedback with tutors into what the affordances and weaknesses of VR are. The actual development of this game spanned about 6 weeks. My responsibilities were:

• All UI/UX Design, Art + Programming

• All Game Programming

• All Game Design

• Particles / Animation

My team members were (with links!):

• Michelle Barnes

  • 3D Modeller focused on Environment Design

• Sorren Manson

  • 3D Modeller focused on Gameplay Prop Design

The tools I used were:

• Unity

• Affinity Designer

• GitHub

• Trello

• Google Docs

Game Description

My Little Flower Garden is a Zen/cozy VR game environment in which the player will go through the simple processes of growing different-coloured flowers. They then can arrange on their own flower wall for purely cosmetic purposes to complete a design!

It’s a small game intended to be ‘completed’ in around 5-10 minutes at most for the sake of completing a routine that feels calming/therapeutic in a VR space with an aesthetic reward. The thematics/nature of the game will encourage them to take their time and not worry about strict or challenging elements.

It's important to note the affordances for VR are all here as well. Objects that are dropped on the floor will be teleported back up to the table and each mechanic has a unique action and hence unique feel!

Skills Developed

This was my first project in VR. As the design was originally mine, I was responsible for deciding a lot of how the player would interact with the world in VR.

In the sense of VR, this project taught me a lot. Quick paper-prototyping and tutor discussions made a few things clear:

• The playing field would have to be mostly in one direction because players don't like turning around

• Objects on the floor should respawn because players don't like having to bend down

• All objects need FX to make interactions more believable and satisfying

• VR is fun because it's a unique way to interact with technology. Therefore all the mechanics should double-down on unique physical interactions.

As the sole programmer and the UI artist, I was also able to make a very useful hint system. This system pop-ups with instructions when the player's progress halts, but backs off as the player participates in the mechanics. Finally it completely disappears after a good amount of success. This really helped onboard all our play-testers and is the first time I explored such an involved FTUE system.

The Design Evolution

The development started with the following concept, with an emphasis on steps that require unique interactions.

Then this was further honed into this next design, which was a lot more space-conscious for the player's best experience in VR.

As you can see, each step focuses on a unique interaction to generate player interest:

• Fertilise

  • Requires the use of a tool

  • Scoop up, and plop down action

• Mix

  • Requires the use of a tool

  • Move as much as possible within a zone (the pot)

• Plant Seed

  • Requires the use of a 'tool'

  • Player gets to choose what colour for aesthetic purposes

  • Player can pour out seeds and can shake the packet to throw seeds around as well

• Water

  • Requires the use of a tool

  • When released, the hose will bungie back towards where it was pulled from

  • Hold the trigger down to shoot water. The pressure of the hold determines how much water flows and how forceful it's velocity will be

• Pluck

  • The player gets to finally grab the flower, pulling it up

• Display

  • Player has full choice of where they want to put the flowers to arrange them into a fun design

  • There is a poster on the wall to give the player inspiration for their design!

All of these steps are guided by a book laid out in front of the player, which I designed:

Furthermore, a hint system was designed by me to help guide players, as they were getting stuck even with the book. This hint system is designed to take the struggle of the instructions from the player. This lets them truly experience Zen by focusing on the fun of the interactions instead of spending brain power trying to remember what they need to do. Here's the UI elements I designed, the top row being the hint icons (accompanied in-game by simple action text).