ARIA
Set in the cold, deadly void of space, Aria is a story-based VR experience where you are placed in a pod to escape a catastrophic explosion on your spaceship. You must succeed on getting back to the Earth by flying to a space station and asking for help. The AI assistant, Aria, acts as your guide in activating and navigating your escape pod to its destination, and to your safe recovery.
DESIGN CHALLENGES
1. Limited development time - three months + part-time
2. Limited number of team members - Four
3. Create an emotional VR experience about stress and connection
HONOR & AWARD
IndieCade 2020 Nominee
USCGames Expo 2020 Showcase
DOWNLOAD HERE
MY ROLE
Creative Director/Game Designer/Writer/Programmer
Narrative design and scriptwriting
Level design, fast-prototyping, pacing, and puzzle design
Scripting driving mechanic, AI system, button puzzle, piloting the pod, and performance
TEAM SIZE - Four
DEVELOPMENT DURATION - Three Months (part-time)
GAME GENRE - Story-based emotional VR sitting experience
TOOL - Unity/C#/OOP/Oculus Integration/C4D/Maya/Zbrush
Walkthrough with Red Vacktor
Design Process
In this game, we implemented the story and gameplay at the same time.
So, the overall pace is mostly based on story intensity.
Piloting + mini-puzzle are two main gamplay in this adventure game.
Our reference was Disney land: Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.
A big challenge we met was in VR the player has the freedom to look anywhere he/she wants.
We need to make sure the player is exactly understanding what is happening and didn’t feel confused.
Players’ attention was the most important thing that needed to be tackled carefully.
In addition, we needed to make sure each story beat was coherent.
Playtesting helped us a lot to find and solve these issues!!
Aria in Unity Editor
Story Intensity and Attention Intensity