Echoes of the Tides VR
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Player Experience
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Picking up artifacts/objects off the beach and collecting them in a pail:
The first mode of engagement is picking up artifacts/objects that have been washed ashore on the beach. There are ten different types of artifacts that can be collected and each play a role in the second and third modes of engagement: movement and word traversal and creating artifact collections through proximity. Players can store the objects they pick up in a pail inventory. Unlike many other games that have an inventory mechanic, this inventory exists in 3D space and is not accessed through the games UI. As long as the bucket contains an artifact and is being held by the player, in either hand, the player can cycle through the artifacts they collected using the horizontal axis of the right thumbstick.
Movement and world traversal:
Movement is an extremely important part of the experience, as looking for artifacts to collect and moving between “worlds” requires a lot of it. The only mode of movement is through smooth locomotion, so it does not use teleportation to move around, and instead uses the left thumbstick. The goal of using smooth locomotion was for the world to feel more vast and natural and it allowed the player to stumble upon objects and changes in the environment they may have accidentally teleported over.
World traversal is not limited to walking around the main world where the player initially finds themselves and can pick up artifacts, it also includes teleporting to other worlds, a Daytime Beach World and an Underwater World, via portals unlocked by the pail inventory. The pail inventory recognizes when a group of artifacts that can fulfill a particular world’s collection is collected, so it will spawn the portal to that world.
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Creating artifact collections through proximity:
As artifacts are collected in the pail inventory they can create potential collections that can be used to spawn collection objects (can also be considered memory objects) in the Daytime Beach World and the Underwater World. The player can transport these objects from one world to another using the pail and can place objects on the ground in these worlds, to try to find the memories of the objects. Inorder to complete a collection and spawn the memory, the artifacts relevant to the memory must be placed close together within a certain proximity. Influenced by crafting games, most artifact combinations that make up a collection are straightforward. Although, it still takes testing out different combinations to find one that spawns a memory.
Artistic Style Outline
We chose to create a 360 video from assets rather than capturing live footage as we felt it would bring together the worlds within the experience where captured footage would cause too much of a stylistic break between the scenes and the fact that we could not reasonably create a 360 underwater scene otherwise. We plan to use pre rendered video layers to create a sense of depth while saving computing power not unlike Myst. While there are ‘living’ things in the scene they are beyond your reach and you are alone on the beach or in the depths exploring a world made up of the memories imbued in objects. We hope to create an environment that reflects these memories more than the current moment you are exploring. For example, the sounds of a beach populated by people where there are none to be found.
Suggested Experience Flow Diagram
