Addressing ‘The idea doesn’t have enough depth’ statements
One of the main criticisms when I first proposed my idea for my final year project was that there was a lot of breadth, not enough depth to the idea. Initially I had hoped to just create an Android game using the knowledge I gained from my placement; having talked this over with my advisor I decided to expand upon that to see if I can get a working link between a high quality VR game and a simple mobile game.
After a few weeks and after starting to design the initial concept in Unity, going back to my advisor has opened my eyes to the whole ‘you can’t just change one thing and magically make it work’ concept which is what I had initially thought of. I needed to find that link between the two. I’ve called it a bridge in the previous blog post, but what is that bridge? How can someone go from one platform to another, and feel like they’ve gotten somewhere along the path that they were following?
And then it hit me.
The mobile app could become a sort-of demo for the story line of the game. Cow On The Line, in essence, is a mini game – it’s a game to get you addicted to it real quick, without anything else needed other than easy gameplay. My plan is to change this by actually using the data that the user gets (the score as it were) to unlock new paths and more. This will make the bridge concept, an actual bridge, but in game. The user, as the cow in 3rd person on mobile, walks up to the bridge with the right amount of points, where the game then asks to switch over to VR (or to continue in 3rd person onto the next level), where in VR the user is now the cow but in 1st person. This opens up a wide range of gameplay options like movement using the sensors of the Oculus Rift, grabbing things (yes, objects that can be left either on the track or on the path can be grabbable and collected) and more.
The best part about this is that the tech demo in itself only has to be these two levels
As stated, essentially you have the best of both worlds (a simple arcade mobile game and a in depth VR first person horror-style game) within just one game. The difference you experience can be demoed easily within just one level. I had initially thought that the passengers the cow delays would go into unlockables, and in essence this is still true, but the unlockable is the next level and the VR gameplay mode which acts as the bridge between the two platforms.
I believe that this offers a unique experience that I can’t wait to build and show off. *fingers crossed* I get to do this in time. 😉