September 4th, 2023 – Sept 10th, 2023
This week we really focused on setting up project pipelines, background research into games relating to our topic, what has been done or where can be draw inspiration.
Production
We have established our project pipeline, so our designers, artist and programmers can work together efficiently. This helps us to lay the groundwork on our expectations we have as a team and the roles we will take on this during this project.
Programming
Due to the hardware limitations of the Quest headset, we are contemplating the implementation of a new rendering structure to ensure cost-effective development. We did research into only rendering the assets that are within the user’s line of sight, with the rest remaining unrendered until they come within the visible range.
Transformational Framework Workshop
This week we had the opportunity to attend a transformational framework workshop led by Elaine Fath. Since our game is focused on bringing awareness to climate change issues, understanding how to utilize this framework is essential. Throughout this workshop we had time to reflect on our goals and really break down what is the best way to develop our game so that we make sure we accomplish this. Establishing our transformational goals early on is very important because it will help our team to establish our path forward and it will be something that we will refer back to throughout our development process. When we spoke with Elaine about some of our design challenges she introduced us to the Quatric Foundry Motivation Model. This model is a chart that we used to help us to narrow down our focus and which ultimately helped to decide to construct our environment within a mangrove forest, a habitat frequented by numerous bottlenose dolphins for hunting and living.
www.quanticfoundry.com
Our brainstorm session using the Quatric Foundry Motivation Model
Game Research
This week we focused on researching and playing games where we could draw inspiration from their gameplay system, environment setups and also just playing as a dolphin. Below are some of the games that we found most helpful.
Jupiter & Mars (VR Game)
In this game they are visualizing the dolphins’ echolocation system by outlining and rendering it in glowing colors, with each color representing a different species. Since it is a VR game, we also gained insights into how their player control system design worked. This game talked about the destruction of the planet so it was interesting to see how they presented and solves the challenges within the game.
Ecco the dolphin
There were some great takeaways on how to create an environment that convincingly simulates an underwater environment, like what the water looks like with the sun coming through.
What Remains of Edith Finch
We drew inspiration from how we might embody an animal in a first-person perspective. The way the player transforms from one animal to another in What Remains of Edith Finch inspired our game by us changing from the Hawk to the Dolphin and back into a human.
Google Spotlight Stories: Sonaria
This was a beautifully done story where the player gets to watch as one species turns into another seamlessly while also entering new environments. It was overall visually stunning and gave us some ideas about how we might transition through different environments, but still maintain cohesion.