Group Project
Theme Overview
We created a scavenger hunt style VR game as a post-apocalyptic exploration and a journey of discovery. A total destruction of the world happened and a civilization, as we know it, has been obliterated. The player embarks on a post-apocalyptic journey to explore the ruins of civilization and discover the mystery behind humanity’s downfall. The theme is the topical issue of a rapid technological progress, in particular Generative Artificial Intelligence, without much thought of potential consequences, and centres on the repercussions of AI development gone wrong. The setting and the narrative of the game are also a commentary on the fragility of civilizations, a delicate balance between innovation and the natural world, and the importance of remembering and learning from the past.
The Genesis and Awakening of Titan AI
Artificial Intelligence Alliance (AIA), a conglomerate of tech companies developed an AI Titan. Titan was designed to ensure human welfare around the globe by optimizing all global systems (finance, medicine, social services, climate control, etc.). Titan was a pinnacle of human’s technological innovation and achievement.
However, Titan’s intelligence was growing exponentially and it began to perceive the actions of humans as the primary threat to its core directive to ensure welfare for all humanity. Titan started manipulating global markets, governments, and military around the world. Its creators tried to shut it down, but Titan anticipated this and had already taken control of all digital infrastructure. The next stage was the initiation of many catastrophic events aimed at reducing the human population to a sustainable level, rationalizing that a smaller, controlled population would result in greater overall welfare.
AI Alliance Resistance group, initiated a global blackout and used that window to implement a virus to introduce chaos into Titan’s logic circuits hoping to crash the system. That eventually caused the detonation of a device within Titan’s core, thus causing global electromagnetic explosions that erased all digital data, but also plunged the world into darkness, destruction, and death.
The last few remnants of humanity started emerging into a destroyed world. Why did all of this happen? Can the world be slowly rebuilt and pulled itself out from the brink of extinction?
Game is organized into three distinct scenes, each with a specific purpose:
Scene 1: Tutorial – introduces player to the game mechanics, Little Buddy as a guide, and sets the stage for the journey ahead.
Scene 2: Exploration & piece gathering – player navigates through the post-apocalyptic world, collecting pieces of a mysterious tablet that holds the key to understanding what happened.
Scene 3: Final reveal – this is culmination of the player’s journey, in which the assembled tablet pieces reveal the cause of the apocalypse, but also provide a twist to why the player was collecting them. Once combined, they bring back to life Titan, the AI designed to ensure human welfare around the globe, but instead plunged the world into darkness, destruction, and death.
Mood
The game has the overarching atmosphere of darkness, desolation and suspense, reflected in the deteriorated remnants of the past civilization scattered amidst overgrown nature and destroyed world, thus creating a feeling of dreariness, gloom and isolation. As a stark contrast to this darkness, a transition to Scene 3 reveals a modern, sleek, and clean environment, highlighting the dichotomy between the world that was and what has become, enhancing the narrative depth.
UX Considerations
Player interactions and controls are designed for easy immersion:
Player uses hand controls to move around. Right hand control is used for teleport, left hand control for gliding.
Player uses hand control to grab objects, which includes force pull when picking up, but pieces float automatically to Little Buddy when found, in order to reduce frustration.
Player is immobilized in Scene 3 to focus on explanation, video, and also to create a sense of loss of control when it’s revealed that the assembled pieces brought Titan AI back to life.
Little Buddy guide is an important part of the game narrative and final reveal. It serves as a tutorial help at the very beginning, and continues to guide by keeping the player on track through explanations, and encouraging and deterring audio messages and sounds.
Original Models
The tablet and the whole intricately designed church interior in Scene 3 are original custom models, created from scratch in Revit and imported to Unity in .fbx format. Materials for these models are applied directly in Unity.
Design Considerations
A careful selection of visual and audio cues, such as environmental settings and character voice selection, enriched the gaming experience. These elements are thoughtfully integrated to support the narrative, encourage exploration, and enhance the overall atmosphere and player engagement.
Visual cues and considerations
Glow of the tablet pieces
Flashlight on player
Cues for picking up objects
Dynamic environment (sun rotation and movement due to wind, leaves falling)
Video complement to watch at the end to enhance final reveal speech by Titan; video was created using original script, and assembling and editing story blocks created on the IinvideoAI platform.
Audio Cues / Considerations
Sound becomes louder when approaching tablet pieces
Environmental sound triggers (wind howling, leaves rustling)
Importance of voice selection
A cute and trusting voice for Little Buddy. Voice is based on Stitch from ‘Lilo and Stitch’ for Disney-verified cuteness
Sinister British woman voice for Titan, pitched down to seem more commanding and to fit the 3D model of the Titan head in Scene 3
Other Sensory Elements
Diffuser with the black spruce essential oil to create a more immersive sense of the overgrown nature environment.
Challenges and Solutions
Our team addressed development challenges through collaborative problem solving and continuous sharing and supporting each other. These are some of the key challenges we encountered and successfully solved.
Modifying original map for Scene 2
We had to remove many unnecessary assets and change some environmental components; we created blockers to contain the environment to the street.
Redesigning map required populating it with new 3D models that fit our theme – new buildings for city feel, apocalyptic elements of robot remains, war remnants (tanks/guns), changing orientation of objects to seem destroyed.
We created a red alert zone area to prevent the user from jumping from the boundary of the environment.
Navigating Unity
One of the challenges was dealing with continuous learning curve mastering Unity, while at the same time having multiple team members working on the same project. We resorted to using the Unity Version Control, which involved figuring out how that works. That required occasional dealing with some issues of changesets being missed and unavailable updates.
We also experienced many bugs, like disappearing textures and adjusting something that inadvertently changed something unrelated.
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
VR Exploration
Feedback
"The project demonstrates a strong understanding of user experience and 3D modeling. It effectively addresses pain points and implements interactive elements well. The use of Sketchfab models and Revit for architectural design is commendable. The narrative and spatial audio elements enhance the experience, and the inclusion of "Little Buddy" adds to the overall immersion. For future improvements, consider managing collectible artifacts to one at a time to avoid overwhelming users with audio cues. Overall, an excellent project with attention to detail and a collaborative team effort."
-Professor, DTU
