Primary Dimensions

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  Editor Screenshot showing how all of the rooms were built on top of each other

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  Once the game is run, culling was utilized to limit the geometry and puzzles for each "room"

Inspiration

The inspiration from this project came from Axel Hranov's love for room-escape games, and interest in new game mechanics the advent of virtual reality allows. With VR, there exist 2 main classifications, stationary and room-scale. Room-scale allows the user to walk around in real life and have his/her movements be reflected in the digital world.

Even with room-scale, there exists the restriction of the physical play space that the player has. These spaces can vary widely, as open space free of clutter can be a luxury. Most games circumvent this by implementing teleportation locomotion. Some people dislike this as it accentuates that they remain stationary when it appears to the user that he/she is moving. Our goal was to create a single-room experience that would allow a fully entertaining experience without the need to go beyond the a medium-sized play space.

What it does

The game entraps the player in a dark room, with nothing but the soft, pulsating light of some strange form of sphere to accompany him/her. From there, the player is able to discover new dimensions, each bringing otherworldly puzzles almost out of thin air.

How we built it

The game was built in the Unity 3D Game Engine, with scripting done using C# in the Monodevelop IDE. Art assets were made using the VR Game Anyland. Axel Hranov brought his Vive and Desktop PC from home, which was used to test and develop the game.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenges we ran into is underestimating the amount of time and testing it would take for each of our desired mechanics. Troubleshooting of bugs took longer than usual as each test run would require donning the Vive Headset. We were ultimately unable to implement all the ideas we had, and some of the puzzle mechanics are not bug-free.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

While the game is limited in it's current state, we believe the aesthetic and the art direction will lead to a memorable experience, especially for those unfamiliar with VR.

What we learned

There was much knowledge of Unity gained from this project, especially with implementation of VR. Other useful knowledge gained was better methods of troubleshooting bugs and working through potential problems beforehand.

What's next for Primary Dimensions

Axel Hranov plans to continue development for this game in his free time. He is hoping to finalize the product and make it available to the public for free. With feedback on this project, future projects can be developed to allow even more immersive and entertaining experiences.

Built With

• anyland
• blender
• htc
• monodevelop
• unity
• vive