Virtual Virus

Full Video Playthrough

Virtual Virus is a virtual reality group project that is still in development.

Play as a robot in a Soup packaging factory going about your day to day job of boxing up cans. However, be careful as there is a nasty virus infecting robots across the factory. But always remember a hard worker is a happy worker and never stop working This project is still on-going.

Roles and responsibilities:

Lead UI designer- produce scamps, low and high fidelity wireframes in Figma
Lead Programmer
Implement UI suitable for a VR game
Project lead- set up a Jira scrum to ensure steady workflow

Tools and resources

Pre-Production

As a team, we made sure to establish a core game loop from the beginning, so there was a sense of rhythm in the gameplay.

Ads disappear and vision is restored

Player packages
cans

Try to get
rid of ads

Virus causes pop-up ads to appear

References

To get a idea for not only the game itself but for the UI, I looked at other game releases that have a similar concept.

Some examples are Job Simulator, Progress bar 94 and Hypnospace outlaw.

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Scamps and concepts

For idea generation for the UI it was important to draw up some rough scamps for the main menu and pop-up ads

Main Menu

dcasfswgfswe

kkkkkkkkoikk

pppppp

dcasfswgfswe

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Pop-up Ads

Low fidelity

Moving into lower fidelity I grabbed an image from the game that I could use as a background to understand how some of the UI pop-up ads would look.

Implementation

Before I went any further in the design I wanted to try and implement some of the ads I had made in high fidelity into the game.

Since VR was a experimental style of game we were making it was essential i implement them in a way that doesn't cause motion sickness

Going forward I plan to add a drag to the ads so they are not so much in the players face. I can experiment with it and ask for feedback from playtesting to see how other players feel about this or whether it is better just leaving them stationary

Managing the team

I ended up taking on the role of project lead through the course of development. To keep on top of the teams progress I used the Jira scrum layout to give team members different to-do's so they could also keep on top of their progress.

Mainly as project lead I wanted my team mates to come to me if they were struggling with anything or were unsure of what to do next so we could all successfully see the clear vision of our design.

Bug tracking

I took on the role of Finding and resolving issues with any bugs in the game. Jira was the main programme used to keep track and the manage issues.

Team collaboration

Working with the 3D artist we used a similar colour palette for the UI Pop Ups, the factory posters and models, I also made a few VFX such as a soup waterfall and steam that used a similar palette as well.

In addition, I worked alongside our sound designer to ensure the sound effects played at suitable times and communicated with him what sounds were needed. Since the player was working in this large factory we had multiple intercom announcements play throughout gameplay for some world building.

Working alongside the 3D modeller allowed us to create a very cohesive environment that added some story telling and world building. The factory the player works for does not care about the robot worker at all and only wants them to work the propaganda posters and sound effects really tell this story to the player.