TEMPLE VR

Temple VR is a prototype puzzle game designed for mobile VR. The task was to create a calming experience. Since player input is extremely limited (literally one button) we didn't want to over complicate things with teleportation locomotion, reaction base gameplay or anything overly fiddle. We decided to mix simple puzzle solving with a relaxing environment to enjoy, since looking around doesn't require any control input and is generally the point to VR. 

The main herdal (besides being our first venture into vr) on this project was getting an acceptable frame rate while maintaining a high detailed environment. This was achieved by using minimal polygons and reusing texture maps, consisting of only albedo non alpha images for maximum performance on mobile gpus.

Then letting the lighting bring out the detail by baking in lighting bounces so that it can run in real-time, with minimal fps drop.

​

To give the player more control despite the single click control on the cardboard, we used physical in game buttons that use gaze selection in order to rotate the mirrors, and thus redirecting the light beam.

I don't think the light base puzzle was all that successful as it was difficult to see where the path of light was, and what direction the mirrors were rotated at. This is due to the low resolution of a mobile based VR, and the lack of multiple vantage points to make sense of what is happening. We had implemented a feature that allowed the lights colour to be changed by passing it through coloured crystals, and only certain coloured lights would activate switches and/or activate the goal but this only made it harder to determine what was happening.