Programmer & Technical Designer
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Developed a VR game and a wearable Arduino game controller using Quest 2, C#, Visual Studio, Unity, and Arduino IDE.
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Implemented gameplay mechanics and communication between hardware (sensors and controllers) and software (game engine).
Introduction Video
Game Overview
Keywords: Evolution | Invertebrate | Perception | Sensory
Core gameplay: Collect | Survive | Adventure
POV: First - Person (or First “non-person”?)
In the game, the player plays a new species that emerged during the Cambrian biological explosion. Players must feed, reproduce and avoid natural predators to maintain the continuation of the species while facing various survival tests from the Cambrian to the Cretaceous period, such as volcanic activity, crustal movement, and other biological extinction. To survive, players as creatures must evolve strategically to acquire the sensory functions and physical abilities necessary for survival.
The game ends when the creature the player is playing becomes extinct, and the player will be able to see their unique, different evolutionary path from all known creatures, their final position on the Phylogenetic Tree, and get an image of that creature.
Game Art
Predator
Mating Parter
Prey （it can also be deadly plastic)
Prey
The different visuals that may be presented when acquiring the visual skills of different species.
For example, Some can identify nectar in the dark, and some can see their companions emitting fluorescent light.
Screen shots
(rendering for both the left and right eyes in VR devices)
Gameplay
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Wearables
HOW WE DESIGN INTERACTIONS
The device takes the head of an arthropod (Insecta) as the primary modeling reference and contains 10 modules such as VR, tentacles, and liquid cavity, which are used to realize the sensory skills of 8 creatures in the game, including releasing pheromones and emitting fluorescence for reproduction signals; different parts are activated sequentially as the sensory skills evolve, realizing the synchronous "evolution" of the physical device and the game process.
When the player swings his arm, the pressure sensor on the big arm feels the pressure, triggering the fan and invoking the fleeing skill simultaneously so the player can move faster.
Player Behavior
Flap Arm
When the player opens his mouth, the pressure sensor at the chin senses the pressure and triggers the ingestion skill to hunt the prey.
Player Behavior
Open Mouth
When the player crosses his / her forearm to use the dodging skill, the Touch Sensor would send a message to Unity and trigger the Static Stealth effect when encountering a predator.
Player Behavior
Cross Forearm
When the player blows air, the airflow sensor senses the size of the airflow, and when a certain threshold is exceeded, the player evokes the copulation skill, and the test tube on the helmet sprays an atomized liquid to release the pheromone.
Player Behavior
Blowing Air
The wind blows on the face to form a sense of touch, indicating an accelerated escape
Game Feedback
Fan turns on
Game Feedback
Aerosol spray
The nebulizer atomizes and sprays water from the test tube to simulate the release of pheromones.
The water in the test tube flows along the tube to the silicone patch at the neck, simulating the secretion of body surface mucus.
Game Feedback
Mucus Secretion
When a prey appears behind the player, the vibration module at the back of the helmet vibrates to alert the player.
Game Feedback
Vibration
WEARABLE GAMING DEVICES
Arduino Modules
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Wearables: Functional Prototype
Game Mechanics
SKILL SYSTEM
The skill system carries the main method of interaction within the game, consisting of active skills and sensory (passive) skills.
The Feedback also consists of two parts:
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Impact on game progress and outcome, bringing a sense of curiosity and freshness.
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The evolution of different senses brings changes in the experience, including all body parts: sight, hearing, touch, etc.
EVENT SYSTEM
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Volcanic Activities
Transposition activity induced by the stress of volcanic environments is thus proposed as the critical factor in the generation of new genetic variants and in the genome reorganization that is the critical driver of the subsequent evolutionary changes leading to rapid speciation.
Affects in Game
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Prey appears less often
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Landscape changes more often
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Species populations decrease rapidly
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Gamma Ray Burst
Death Rays, but also Evolution Boosters.
A gamma ray burst could impact only one hemisphere.
A “biologically significant” gamma-ray burst is a radiation dose strong enough to double the mutation rate in animal species. Higher mutation rates spurred the development of new survivable species from old, dying ones.
At least one thousand of these radiation events (powerful enough to disturb or destroy life) have occurred during the 4-billion-year history of life on Earth.
Affects in Game
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Prey appears less often
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It only affects one landscape at a time.
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Species populations decrease rapidly.
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Skill ball of different kinds appears more often regardless of period.
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Pollution
Humans have become the greatest geophysical force on Earth.
Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans is creating an “evolutionary trap” for young species, according to a new study.
Affects in Game
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Deadly plastic jellyfish appear as edible prey.
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The species population constantly decrease when the player eats a plastic jellyfish instead of a real one.
GAME MAP
The map changes dynamically during the game depending on the geological events that occur. Two important geological events made the map of the game change in the following order during the game and marked the transformation of the game in different periods.
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DIFFICULTY CURVE
Survival of the Fittest
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Unlike other games, the initial “adaptation period” of this game is very difficult.
In the early stages of the species explosion, species often face the most severe natural selection.
This is in line with both the game setting and the laws of nature.
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When the player evolves the skills to adapt to the environment, the difficulty of survival will be reduced.
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However, skills are not always useful, and when major evolutionary or geological events occur, skills that were previously advantageous may instead become disadvantageous; the game again steeply increases its difficulty.
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The entire game is fast-paced, tense, and exciting, provoking players to strive to constantly recognize new realities and even use their unfamiliar shells in order to survive.
ENDING
Different Probable Results for Every Player
Since every time you play, the outcomes are different and unique. It encourages players to experience the game repeatedly to explore and collect all possible scenarios.
Evolution Path
The evolution path shows the gaming process of the player, where and what the player ends up in the Phylogenetic tree, in the long evolutionary history from Cambrian to Cretaceous.
The evolution path and the image of the species are generated according to every individual player’s game experience.
Species Image
The image shows a new species each player evolved into before it came extinct. Every time the player evolves a sensory skill in the game, he/she will gain the relative organ or body part of that species.
Game UI
UI For Sensory Skill System
UI For Active Skill System
UI For Event System & Landscape System
UI For VR Controller
Inspirations & Reseach
DESIGN POINT: INVERTEBRATE
How We Differs From Invertebrate:
Because of the absence of a spine, invertebrates have evolved a variety of sensory organs different from vertebrates, for example, arthropods sense taste through the appendages (tarsi) and smell through the tentacles, and are distributed throughout the body.
Unlike vertebrates that have a central nervous system with a brain and spine, it is distributed: many nerves are not directly controlled by the central (brain), but by large neurons (ganglia), equivalent to having multiple brains.
THIS PROJECT STARTED ON A RESEARCH ON...
