This week the team worked hard to put the pieces together for our first complete playtest on Wednesday March 30th.
The first challenge is the player interaction with the wall projection in the immersive room. Our initial plan is to use a Vive tracker as the mouse; however, it doesn’t have an interaction button, which will completely mess up our UI design. Thus, we thought of an alternative: use only one controller for VR player to row the boat and interact, while the other controller is handed to the immersive room player to interact with the wall.
The second big component is the environment. We built a terrain based on the level design, and we planted trees and scenery to show the vibe of the Amazon. Then, we applied the toon shader on trees for the style. Finally, we applied the stylized shader for deforestation and oil pollution effect on selected areas.
We also designed the ending part so that the player can edit and create their own documentary using the videos they recorded during the game. We believe it can really make the player feel the engagement to the issue and theme.
After we have all the pieces, we need to glue everything together, which is our task for next week. Next week, we will finally phase into our final development stage, which will include a lot of playtesting and iterating.