This week, Pittsburgh experienced a severe snowstorm, which significantly disrupted our team’s daily commute throughout the week. The heavy snowfall also forced our originally scheduled Monday Quarter presentation to be postponed by one week.
Despite the city being blanketed in snow, our team continued to make steady progress across project management, role design, and technical optimization through continuous experimentation and iteration.
Progress Overview
- Completed the content design for the Quarter presentation
- Developed a faster and more efficient object and marker recognition system
- Implemented interactions between real-world objects and virtual magic circles
- Designed two spirits with distinct visual styles based on the project’s concept
- Established more complete concepts for the logo and poster design
I. Game Design Progress
We first refined our definition of the project’s core identity and experience. The defining feature of our project is Tangible Immersion. This concept refers to an experience in which physical objects that already exist in the real world—such as drawers, scissors, clocks, and other everyday items—can function as controllers. These tangible controllers enable engaging and meaningful interactions for users.Building on this interaction paradigm, we designed our experience as a room-based, puzzle-solving narrative experience. At its current stage, the experience includes a user onboarding tutorial, cooperative puzzle-solving between two players, and a boss fight that encourages users to move and collaborate together within the same physical room.
II. Art Progress
For the art direction, we gathered and analyzed several pieces of concept art and decided to create the atmosphere of an abandoned classroom. Based on our references and visual intentions, we designed two types of spirits: a trash spirit and a nature spirit. Our goal is for these spirits to not only fit seamlessly into the world-building but also resonate emotionally with users and capture their attention.
In design production, we also developed initial drafts for the project’s logo and poster. Our overall visual design philosophy aims to convey a sense of exchange and fusion between Mixed Reality and virtual elements, highlighting the boundary-blurring nature of the experience.
III. Tech Progress
On the technical side, we focused on improving object detection speed, display performance (FPS stability), and the implementation of interactive features. For object recognition, we experimented with connecting the headset to a PC to increase computing power, tested different types of markers, and explored AI-assisted object detection. Overall, these approaches significantly improved recognition speed compared to previous iterations.
In terms of interaction design, we successfully implemented prototypes that allow virtual magic circles to interact with real-world objects, as well as a system where virtual elements grow or emerge when a physical drawer is opened.
What’s Next
- Prepare for next week’s Quarter presentation and iterate on the design based on feedback
- Begin designing and implementing drawer-based interactions
- Further refine and develop character designs