Aqua Quest is a game where you play as an employee who is controlling a smart waterbag in vr to water inside homes and greenhouses. Traverse around pets and various robots, including roombas, drones.
AquaQuest
Facility Basement - Tutorial
The first part of the level is the tutorial where the player learns how to move, slide, jump, interact and fill water.
The level has a low ceiling, giving the player a cramped feeling, with some windows to look at the broken buildings outside
The level has turns and curves, making the player used to the navigation of the game.
Facility First Floor - Testing Mechanics
Facility's first floor is layed out with plants and water fillers, the level circles around till the player reaches the kitchen from which the player has to go up the vent, to reach the second floor.
The first enemy, the roomba is introduced here.
Facility Second Floor - Testing more complex situations
The greenhouse on the second floor has a similar navigation to the first floor, the player has to move circularly clearing each space and watering plants.
Drones are introduced with roombas.
Level Showcase
The level showcases many platforming techniques using some level design blueprints like the lift and jumpables. Playing this the player does not feel that he is going in a circular path after clearing each area.
Final Look of the Level
Level Design Timelapse
Before and After (Greybox and Final Look)
Learnings
I used a maximalist approach where I designed many pathways in the facility for each room, then I filtered some pathways that were difficult, it was easy to remove such paths. I interated many times on the level. I used a direction light to set the main mood of the level and further added more depth by adding extra lights.
UI Design
I used a maximalist approach where I designed many pathways in the facility for each room, then I filtered some pathways that were difficult, it was easy to remove such paths. I interated many times on the level. I used a direction light to set the main mood of the level and further added more depth by adding extra lights.
Main Menu
For the main menu, the design was to have the player stationary in VR inside a room, with 2 screens in front of him that would change. The centre screen would display the menu and the second screen would show logo, images etc corresponding to the centre screen.
I designed the main menu, using buttons rendered in blender, I made a material inside unreal to make the menu more dynamic.
Material made in Unreal
HUD
I designed the HUD in many colors and rendered in blender.
I designed the HUD that can be toggled in 3D space while playing. I had initially designed for it to be curved, but because of the toggling there were some issues, we had to revert to a straight HUD.
For the water level progress bar, I made a material in Unreal that can be changed in the blueprint.
Pause Menu
I designed the pause menu, that would appear in front of the camera in the game. Being in VR, the player would be able to aim and select the buttons.
Game Logo Designed using adobe suite and rendered in blender
Some Button Renders made in blender
Game Logo Designed using adobe suite and rendered in blender
Bag Water Material
To make the Water inside the bag reactive to movement, I added a sine function to the UV, and using scaling parameters I could adjust the water level. I added noise for when the bag jumps and lands.
Learnings
- I started with a big scope for the game, due to time restrictions we could deliver only 2 levels.
- VR debugging was an issue so I made an alternate file where I would create and test out blueprints before putting them in VR, making the process of debugging easy
- I made blueprints modular so that I could change them later, this helped me alot while I made the plant animations and adjusting it to work with the watering.
Team: 3
3 Months
VR Platformer
This game is an ode to platformers, immersed with VR, set in the future(2400 AD), there is a fun dystopian narrative, with unique enemies and a message to water and grow more plants.
The Player plays as a Waterbag traversing through the building completing objectives and evading enemies (cat, roomba, drone.)
Inspired from games like Moss and Toy Story 2, I came up with this concept of making a scaled down creature traverse and do platforming.
Water Bag
Enemies
Level Design
Process
I designed a facility which has the tutorial of the game, it starts inside a basement, the player learns new mechanics as he climbs the stairs to reach the first floor, where the player is tested, platforming to find ways, then enemies are introduced with their weaknesses shown. Player moves up a level to reach the roof greenhouse of the facility.
Facility 1st Floor Plan
Facility 2nd Floor Plan