El Pasante Elementalista
El Pasante Elementalista is a VR escape room game in which the player plays a magic intern looking to graduate, for this he has to go into the ancient crypt to return the golden scroll through the use of his powers. The player can extract the elements of the environment to cast his spells, interact with them with the scenario and also combine these spells to generate new ones. The game is based on my university research: “The Creative Impact of Virtual Reality Video Games”. Check it out below!
Engine: Unity
Platform: PC and Meta Quest 2
Role: Lead game designer and programmer
Team: Claudio Pastenes (Game Designer), Gabriel Ferrer (3D artist), Suriana Ibañez (3D artist), Javier Cots (Voice actor)
My contribution to the project
Lead game designer
- Coordinated the team, assigning tasks to each member
- Co-created and directed the design of the levels, tutorials and mechanics.
- Researched the relationship of creativity and VR video games to get a better insight into the development and iterations of game puzzles.
- Directed and supported the art team to achieve the desired look and feel of the game.
- Organized several playtesting sessions and iterated the prototype based on the result of the tests.
Programmer
- Programmed and implemented all the systems required, such as character movement, element extraction, combine elements, elements cast, puzzle interaction and more.
- Adapted systems for both PC and VR experiences.
- Integrated all assets in Unity while prioritizing optimization for a lightweight project.
- Programmed two versions of the videogame, one with hand tracking technology and the second with the use of controllers.
Postmortem of the project
What went well
- We launched our game on Steam and reached +8000 players and positive reviews in less than a week .
- Thanks to the effective communication with the artists we were able to obtain a result of a game with a magical and creative atmosphere, which are the graphic pillars of the game.
- The players enjoyed our game!
What went wrong
- We had problems with the first version of the game using Hand Tracking, because players were not used to this technology and could not advance in the game. We tried several times with the use of this technology but in the end we opted for the use of physical controls.
What I learned
- As a designer and programmer, I learned a lot about Unity, 3D and VR development usign both UnityXR and Meta SDKs.
- Learned the great importance of continuous playtesting as without it we would not have made the decision to change the controls of the project for the better as well as quality of life changes so that players would not get lost solving the puzzles.