OcuBlocks
Technical Director | Game Designer
Developed in Unreal 3
What It Is
OcuBlocks puts the player into a virtual reality program where something has gone wrong. They must use their mind and body to get to the source of corruption and repair the program.
The Design - Virtual Reality
OcuBlocks was designed to take advantage of the Oculus Rift and Razer Hydra peripherals to create a virtual reality game. I wanted to design a game where the players would be forced to think about and use their physical hands to progress through the game. This created the puzzle game "OcuBlocks".
Players would have to use their hands with the Razer Hydra controllers to carry blocks, glue them together, tear them apart, and throw them like they would naturally in real life.
Players would have to use their hands with the Razer Hydra controllers to carry blocks, glue them together, tear them apart, and throw them like they would naturally in real life.
The Design - Early Prototypes
I was following Oculus Rift development as well as other enthusiasts very closely. I quickly learned about the Razer Hydras being used as a device to represent the players' hands within the virtual world. I got really excited. So the first thing I did when we decided that we wanted to use the Oculus Rift was introducing the team to the Razer Hydras. I quickly procured a set for myself and began coding away to make them work within the Unreal 3 engine the way we want.
The Design - Brand New Hardware
From there, I had to think about how the players would use the device unattended and what their expectations would be. The Razer Hydras had a couple buttons in very awkward positions, so I avoided mapping any buttons to them. This significantly reduced the amount of usable input buttons from the controllers that we could leverage for the design.
One of my early prototypes used the trigger and bumpers for pushing and pulling, but players had trouble using it. This is mostly due to the fact that the hardware they are using has not been standardized and is still very new... and they're basically blinded by the Oculus Rift headset.
We finally ended up having only the trigger button as our interaction button for everything in the game, except for pausing and moving. This was a success as players were able to pick up on the controls very quickly.
One of my early prototypes used the trigger and bumpers for pushing and pulling, but players had trouble using it. This is mostly due to the fact that the hardware they are using has not been standardized and is still very new... and they're basically blinded by the Oculus Rift headset.
We finally ended up having only the trigger button as our interaction button for everything in the game, except for pausing and moving. This was a success as players were able to pick up on the controls very quickly.
What I Did
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The Team
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