Mystica
Tools:
Unity, Visual Studio, SteamVR, Substance Painter,
Github, Windows speech recognition
Roles:
Game Designer, Programmer, and Producer.
Overview
This was a project created with a group of 5 people as Balter
Games over a 3 month period. Mystica is a VR Arena Game where the
the player has moved into the applied version of Creature Defence
class, where you are fighting and defending yourself against
mythical creatures instead of just studying them in books.
Over
the course of the game, you develop your skills in magic and
become more familiar with the creatures you battle, discovering
their weaknesses and strengths as you battle them more and more.
As your enemies get stronger, so do you.
Design Goals
Power Fantasy
- John Wick with an Elder Wand
- have the player feel like
an Overwhelming Force
- Can only be diverted, not opposed
Creative Problem Solving
- Different problem types with various solutions
-Make the
player feel smart
Knowledge is Power
- Allow for Understanding of spells
- Provide knowledge
through game progression
Process
Learning VR and using it to the fullest
As a team, the first thing we had to do was learn
how to design for VR and implementing it into unity as only 1
person on the team had limited experience with VR. This took a
while to figure out how to code and optimize for VR and learning
the design restrictions and options for it.
For this
project, we wanted to figure out interesting ways to cast
spells. We wanted to make full use of the VR controllers and
include a spell that was physics based in nature. So we found
ways to capture the momentum of the controllers and launch a
spell from the wand in a direction the player was throwing.
We
also decided to use Windows Voice Recognition as a hands-free
way to switch between spells to let the player feel like they
were vocally casting the spell in order to use it,
Creating the Enemies
When
creating the Enemies, I wanted it so that the player was not
getting attacked by every AI in the arena at once while still
keeping the game interesting. To do this I used a token system
similar to DOOM. This system allowed me to limit attacks to the
AI who had a token, meaning of the 3 AI in the arena, only 1
could attack since there was only 1 token available. This helped
keep damage to the player where we expected it and helped in not
overwhelming the player with attacks.
Design and Balance
Throughout this entire process, I was tasked with
balancing the game, creating spells, and making a Game Design
Document that was kept up to date until the end of our
prototype. This was helped keep all information in one place as
it made tweaking the game much easier.
Takeaways
This game was the first VR game I had the chance to work on and I gained a lot of knowledge of how to design for it, what its drawbacks are, and how to use it to its fullest potential. It also taught me how to create a functional AI without overwhelming the player, and also taught me how to create a functional Game Design Document to keep all ideas of the game and numbers up to date.